Abstract Background Breast cancer screening is essential in detecting breast tumors, however, the examination is stressful. In this study we analyzed whether humor enhances patient satisfaction. Methods In this prospective randomized study 226 patients undergoing routine breast cancer screening at a single center during October 2020 to July 2021 were included. One hundred thirty-two were eligible for the study. Group 1 (66 patients) received an examination with humorous intervention, group 2 (66 patients) had a...

ObjectiveThe study investigates the diagnostic and prognostic significance of the prothrombin time/international normalized ratio (PT/INR) in patients with sepsis and septic shock.BackgroundSepsis may be complicated by disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC). While the status of coagulopathy of septic patients is represented within the sepsis-3 definition by assessing the platelet count, less data regarding the prognostic impact of the PT/INR in patients admitted with sepsis and septic shock is available.MethodsConsecutive patients with sepsis and septic shock from...

Background:Depressive symptoms are common in the peripartum period and pose a great risk to the well-being of the mother, the infant, and the entire family. Evidence from longitudinal studies suggests that affected women do not constitute one homogeneous group in terms of severity, chronicity, and onset of symptoms. To account for individual differences regarding the longitudinal course of depressive symptoms from pregnancy to the postpartum period, growth mixture models have proven to be useful.Methods:We conducted...

We analyze short-term media trust changes during the COVID-19 pandemic, their ideological drivers and consequences based on panel data in German-speaking Switzerland. We thereby differentiate trust in political information from different types of traditional and non-traditional media. COVID-19 serves as a natural experiment, in which citizens’ media trust at the outbreak of the crisis is compared with the same variables after the severe lockdown measures were lifted. Our data reveal that (1) media trust is...

On April 29th, 2021, Professor Hugh Angus Macleod, Angus as he was known to his family and friends, passed away at his home in Tucson, Arizona. Angus was a leading authority in the field of thin film optics, and he leaves behind a legacy of extraordinary contributions to the thin film community. This article outlines Angus’s career in optics – a career that spanned over 60 years. Not only was Angus an eminent and distinguished...

Abstract Background Traditionally, hand hygiene (HH) interventions do not identify the observed healthcare workers (HWCs) and therefore, reflect HH compliance only at population level. Intensive care units (ICUs) in seven European hospitals participating in the “Prevention of Hospital Infections by Intervention and Training” (PROHIBIT) study provided individual HH compliance levels. We analysed these to understand the determinants and dynamics of individual change in relation to the overall intervention effect. Methods We included HCWs who contributed...

Abstract Background Traditionally, hand hygiene (HH) interventions do not identify the observed healthcare workers (HWCs) and therefore, reflect HH compliance only at population level. Intensive care units (ICUs) in seven European hospitals participating in the “Prevention of Hospital Infections by Intervention and Training” (PROHIBIT) study provided individual HH compliance levels. We analysed these to understand the determinants and dynamics of individual change in relation to the overall intervention effect. Methods We included HCWs who contributed...

On April 29th, 2021, Professor Hugh Angus Macleod, Angus as he was known to his family and friends, passed away at his home in Tucson, Arizona. Angus was a leading authority in the field of thin film optics, and he leaves behind a legacy of extraordinary contributions to the thin film community. This article outlines Angus’s career in optics – a career that spanned over 60 years. Not only was Angus an eminent and distinguished...

Deer species were repeatedly overexploited and protected for their meat and fur and they had strong impacts on ecosystems and human society by damaging crops and planted trees, altering vegetation, deer vehicle collision, and increasing ticks that vector zoonosis. To accomplish appropriate population management, the historical demography and its main driver need to be clarified. In this study, we estimated the historical demography of effective population size (Ne) of sika deer (Cervus nippon Temminck) in...

Abstract Backgrounds Individuals with chronic medical conditions are considered highly exposed to COVID-19 pandemic stress, but emerging evidence is demonstrating that resilience is common even among them. We aimed at identifying sustained resilient outcomes and their predictors in chronically ill people during the first year of the pandemic. Methods This international 4-wave 1-year longitudinal online survey included items on socio-demographic characteristics, economic and living situation, lifestyle and habits, pandemic-related issues, and history of mental disorders....

Objectives: Both, Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection and malnutrition are major challenges in pregnancy and postpartum in low-resource settings and the respective cytokine levels remain poorly described. The main objectives of this study were to find immune markers that are associated with HIV infection and malnutrition in pregnant women and to determine how these would change at 14 weeks postpartum.Method: Pregnant women of at least 20 weeks gestational age were enrolled into this longitudinal observational...

Objectives:We identified factors associated with healthcare costs and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of multimorbid older adults with polypharmacy.Methods:Using data from the OPERAM (OPtimising thERapy to prevent Avoidable hospital admissions in the Multimorbid older people) trial, we described the magnitude and composition of healthcare costs, and time trends of HRQoL, during 1-year after an acute-care hospitalization. We performed a cluster analysis to identify groups with different cost and HRQoL trends. Using multilevel models, we also...

Abstract Background The first three years of life are the critical and sensitive periods for the formation of individual abilities. However, existing data indicates that early childhood development (ECD) in economically vulnerable areas of China is lagging, which is closely related to the lack of parenting knowledge and poor parenting practices. Methods We conducted a non-masked cluster-randomized controlled trial in a former nationally designated poverty county of China. All 6–36-month-old children and their caregivers living...

Abstract Background Several studies have investigated the relationship between antenatal education classes and pregnancy outcomes. These studies have shown positive effects on mothers, such as a lower epidural rate in the intervention groups. However, until now, the impact on outcomes for mothers and newborns of antenatal education classes that focus on breathing and relaxation techniques has not been examined. Aim Investigate the effects of skilled breathing and relaxation techniques provided in antenatal education classes on...

On April 29th, 2021, Professor Hugh Angus Macleod, Angus as he was known to his family and friends, passed away at his home in Tucson, Arizona. Angus was a leading authority in the field of thin film optics, and he leaves behind a legacy of extraordinary contributions to the thin film community. This article outlines Angus’s career in optics – a career that spanned over 60 years. Not only was Angus an eminent and distinguished...

ObjectivesThis retrospective study aimed to determine the incidence of nodal metastatic disease in cats affected by low-grade cutaneous mast cell tumours (MCTs) in our study population.MethodsThe clinical records of two centres were retrospectively searched for cats with cutaneous MCTs that had undergone lymphadenectomy of enlarged and non-enlarged lymph nodes. All primary tumours were histologically reviewed by two experienced pathologists and graded as high- or low-grade based on the grading system for feline cutaneous MCT. We...

Pericytes are the mural cells of the microvascular network that are in close contact with underlying endothelial cells. Endothelial-secreted PDGFB leads to recruitment of pericytes to the vessel wall, but this is disrupted in Pdgfbret/ret mice when the PDGFB retention motif is deleted. This results in severely reduced pericyte coverage on blood vessels. In this study, we investigated vascular abnormalities and hemodynamics in Pdgfbret/ret mice throughout the cerebrovascular network and in different cortical layers by...

Symptom-system fit theory proposes that problematic behaviors are maintained by the social system (e.g., the couple relationship) in which they occur because they help promote positive relationship functioning in the short-term. Across three daily life studies, we examined whether mixed-gender couples reported more positive relationship functioning on days in which they engaged in more shared problematic behaviors. In two studies (Study 1: 82 couples who smoke; Study 2: 117 couples who are inactive), days of...

Symptom-system fit theory proposes that problematic behaviors are maintained by the social system (e.g., the couple relationship) in which they occur because they help promote positive relationship functioning in the short-term. Across three daily life studies, we examined whether mixed-gender couples reported more positive relationship functioning on days in which they engaged in more shared problematic behaviors. In two studies (Study 1: 82 couples who smoke; Study 2: 117 couples who are inactive), days of...

On April 29th, 2021, Professor Hugh Angus Macleod, Angus as he was known to his family and friends, passed away at his home in Tucson, Arizona. Angus was a leading authority in the field of thin film optics, and he leaves behind a legacy of extraordinary contributions to the thin film community. This article outlines Angus’s career in optics – a career that spanned over 60 years. Not only was Angus an eminent and distinguished...

We analyze short-term media trust changes during the COVID-19 pandemic, their ideological drivers and consequences based on panel data in German-speaking Switzerland. We thereby differentiate trust in political information from different types of traditional and non-traditional media. COVID-19 serves as a natural experiment, in which citizens’ media trust at the outbreak of the crisis is compared with the same variables after the severe lockdown measures were lifted. Our data reveal that (1) media trust is...

Deer species were repeatedly overexploited and protected for their meat and fur and they had strong impacts on ecosystems and human society by damaging crops and planted trees, altering vegetation, deer vehicle collision, and increasing ticks that vector zoonosis. To accomplish appropriate population management, the historical demography and its main driver need to be clarified. In this study, we estimated the historical demography of effective population size (Ne) of sika deer (Cervus nippon Temminck) in...

Abstract Background Adenosine is a potent immunosuppressant whose levels in the tumor microenvironment (TME) are often much higher than those in normal tissues. Binding of adenosine to its receptor A2aR activates a cascade of genes and leads to immunosuppression. In addition, immune checkpoint blockage markedly increases A2aR expression in T cells, which could dampen their anti-tumor response. Several A2aR antagonists are under clinical development, but with limited clinical benefit reported so far. These A2aR antagonists...

Abstract Background The sublingual microcirculation presumably exhibits disease-specific changes in function and morphology. Algorithm-based quantification of functional microcirculatory hemodynamic variables in handheld vital microscopy (HVM) has recently allowed identification of hemodynamic alterations in the microcirculation associated with COVID-19. In the present study we hypothesized that supervised deep machine learning could be used to identify previously unknown microcirculatory alterations, and combination with algorithmically quantified functional variables increases the model’s performance to differentiate critically ill COVID-19 patients...

On April 29th, 2021, Professor Hugh Angus Macleod, Angus as he was known to his family and friends, passed away at his home in Tucson, Arizona. Angus was a leading authority in the field of thin film optics, and he leaves behind a legacy of extraordinary contributions to the thin film community. This article outlines Angus’s career in optics – a career that spanned over 60 years. Not only was Angus an eminent and distinguished...