Tag: pubmed

PLoS One. 2024 Nov 1;19(11):e0313192. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0313192. eCollection 2024.

ABSTRACT

Over the past few decades, the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) on neonates and very young children has increased dramatically in research and clinical settings. However, the specific characteristics of this population and the MRI standards largely derived from adult studies, pose serious practical challenges. The current study aims to provide general methodological guidelines for customized neonatal fMRI by assessing the performance of various fMRI hardware and software applications. Specifically, this article focuses on MR equipment (head coils) and MR sequences (singleband vs. multiband). We computed and compared the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and the temporal SNR (tSNR) in different fMRI protocols using a small-size spherical phantom in three different commercial receiver-only head-neck coils. Our findings highlight the importance of coil selection and fMRI sequence planning in optimizing neonatal fMRI. For SNR, the prescan normalize filter resulted in significantly higher values overall, while in general there was no difference between the different sequences. In terms of head coil performance, the 20-channel head coil showed slightly but significantly higher values compared to the others. For tSNR, there was no difference in the usage of the prescan normalize filter, but the values were significantly higher in the singleband EPI sequences compared to the multiband. In contrast to the SNR, the pediatric head coil seems to have an advantage for tSNR. We provide five practical guidelines to assist researchers and clinicians in developing fMRI studies in neonates and young infants. These recommendations are especially relevant considering ethical constraints and exogenous challenges of neonatal fMRI.

PMID:39485821 | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0313192

PLoS One. 2024 Nov 1;19(11):e0309244. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0309244. eCollection 2024.

ABSTRACT

Providing pigs with organic enrichment material is important for satisfying pigs’ natural explorative behavior to prevent injurious tail biting and thus increase animal welfare in general. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of automatically supplied enrichment material of three different types (alfalfa pellets, oat bran pellets, or a mixture of both) and different enrichment frequencies (2, 4, or 6 supplies/day) on the behavior, the occurrence of tail biting, and daily weight gains of weaner pigs. The results showed significant effects and interactions of enrichment material, frequency and the time of day on the exploratory behavior, the occurrence of tail biting, and daily weight gains. Higher probabilities for pigs using the enrichment material were observed for groups provided with only two supplies/day or receiving oat bran pellets. Additionally, more pigs explored the material when supplied in the afternoon compared to the morning. Tail lesions began to increase in week 4 of the rearing period. Higher probabilities of having a tail lesion were recorded in groups provided with two supplies/day compared to four or six supplies per day. Furthermore, the highest probabilities for pigs having a tail length loss at the end of the rearing period were shown by groups receiving two supplies/day, with 0.170 for alfalfa pellets, 0.342 for mixture, and 0.486 for oat bran pellets. For daily weight gains, only alfalfa groups differed significantly from mixture groups in the case of two supplies/day. No differences were observed for the other factor combinations. These results showed the potential of an automatic enrichment device supporting pigs in performing their natural exploratory behavior in a conventional housing system. Higher numbers of daily enrichment supplies show beneficial effects to reduce the occurrence of tail biting and tail length losses.

PMID:39485808 | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0309244

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2024 Nov 5;121(45):e2412205121. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2412205121. Epub 2024 Nov 1.

ABSTRACT

A country’s national income broadly depends on the quantity and quality of workers and capital. But how well these factors are managed within and between firms may be a key determinant of a country’s productivity and its GDP. Although social scientists have long studied the role of management practices in shaping business performance, their primary tool has been individual case studies. While useful for theory-building, such qualitative work is hard to scale and quantify. We present a large, scalable dataset measuring structured management practices at the business level across multiple countries. We measure practices related to performance monitoring, target-setting, and human resources. We document a set of key stylized facts, which we label “the international empirics of management”. In all countries, firms with more structured practices tend to also have superior economic performance: they are larger in scale, are more profitable, have higher labor productivity and are more likely to export. This consistency was not obvious ex-ante, and being able to quantify these relationships is valuable. We also document significant variation in practices across and within countries, which is important in explaining differences in the wealth of nations. The positive relationship between firm size and structured management practices is stronger in countries with more open and free markets, suggesting that stronger competition may allow firms with more structured management practices to grow larger, thereby potentially raising aggregate national income.

PMID:39485796 | DOI:10.1073/pnas.2412205121

PLoS One. 2024 Nov 1;19(11):e0298996. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0298996. eCollection 2024.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Breast cancer is a global concern, with 2.3 million new cases and 685,000 deaths recorded in 2020, and projections of reaching 4.4 million cases by 2070. In Tanzania, it’s the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths among women, often diagnosed at advanced stages, leading to poor outcomes. Only 5% of women in the country report undergoing breast cancer screening, the aim study is to determine factors associated with breast cancer screening in Tanzania.

METHODS: This was analytical cross-sectional study among women of reproductive age in Tanzania, utilizing data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) which employed a two-stage probability sampling. A weighted sample of 15,189 women of reproductive age (15-49) was included in the study. Binary logistic regression analysis was used to examine factors associated with breast cancer screening. These results were presented using adjusted odds ratio (AOR) with a 95% confidence interval.

RESULTS: After controlling for other factors, the following factors remained significantly associated with breast cancer screening among women of reproductive age; age(AOR = 5.33, 95% CI 3.72, 7.63), being wealthy (AOR = 2.34, 95% CI 1.61, 3.38), residing in rural(AOR = 0.59, 95% CI 0.46, 0.763), being educated(AOR = 2.43, 95% CI 1.60, 3.68), being insured(AOR = 2.40, 95% CI 1.89, 3.06), healthcare facility visits in the past 12 months(AOR = 1.43, 95% CI 1.14, 1.78) and living in Northern zone (AOR = 2.43, 95% CI 1.42, 4.15) compared to western zone.

CONCLUSION: Breast cancer screening is still under-utilized and have shown to be marginalized in women of reproductive age. Upgrading diagnostic services, comprehensive health education and awareness campaigns are instrumental to increase utilization and reduction of burden of breast cancers in Tanzania.

PMID:39485789 | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0298996

PLoS One. 2024 Nov 1;19(11):e0288888. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0288888. eCollection 2024.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Surgery is an indispensable component of a functional healthcare system. To date there is limited information regarding how many people die during the perioperative period globally. This study describes a protocol for a systematic review and multilevel meta-regression to evaluate time trends regarding the odds of perioperative mortality among adults undergoing a bellwether surgical procedure while accounting for higher order clustering at the national level.

METHODS: Published studies reporting the number of perioperative deaths from bellwether surgical procedures among adults will be identified from MEDLINE, Embase, Cochrane CENTRAL, LILACS and Global Index Medicus. The primary outcome will be the rate of perioperative mortality across time and the secondary outcome will be investigating cause of death over time as a proportion of overall perioperative mortality. Two reviewers will independently conduct full text screening and extract the data. Disagreements will first be resolved via consensus. If consensus cannot be reached a third reviewer will be included to arbitrate. Due to human resource limitations, a risk of bias appraisal will not be conducted. From the included studies a multilevel meta-regression will be constructed to synthesize the results. This model will conceptualize patients as nested in studies which are in turn nested within countries while taking into account potential confounding variables at all levels.

DISCUSSION: The systematic review and multilevel meta-regression that will be conducted based on this protocol will provide synthesized global evidence regarding the trends of perioperative mortality. This eventual study may help policymakers and other key stakeholders with benchmarking surgical safety initiatives as well as identify key gaps in our current understanding of global perioperative mortality.

TRIAL REGISTRATION: Systematic review registration: PROSPERO registration number 429040.

PMID:39485783 | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0288888

PLoS One. 2024 Nov 1;19(11):e0311909. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0311909. eCollection 2024.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Numerous studies indicated that workers in the health sector suffer from work stress, hassles, and mental health problems associated with COVID-19, which negatively affect the completion of their job tasks. These studies pointed out the need to search for mechanisms that enable workers to cope with job stress effectively.

OBJECTIVES: This study investigated psychological flow, mental immunity, and job performance levels among the mental health workforce in Saudi Arabia. It also tried to reveal the psychological flow (PF) and mental immunity (MI) predictability of job performance (JP).

METHOD: A correlational survey design was employed. The study sample consisted of 120 mental health care practitioners (therapists, psychologists, counselors)who lived in Saudi Arabia. Sixty-four were men, 56 were women, and their ages ranged between 27 and 48 (36.32±6.43). The researchers developed three measurements of psychological flow, mental immunity, and job performance. After testing their validity and reliability, these measures were applied to the study participants.

RESULTS: The results found median levels of psychological flow, mental immunity, and job performance among mental health care practitioners. Also, the results revealed that psychological flow and mental immunity were statistically significant predictors of job performance. The psychological flow variable contributed (38.70%) and mental immunity (54.80%) to the variance in job performance of mental health care practitioners.

CONCLUSION: The current study indicated that psychological flow and mental immunity significantly influenced the job performance of mental health care practitioners. These findings pointed out that human resource management in mental health care institutions in Saudi Arabia must search for procedures that achieve a state of flow and mental immunity for workers to make their jobs more meaningful. Also, these findings indicated the importance of planning interventions to enhance mental health care practitioners’ psychological flow, mental immunity, and job performance to help them cope with work stress effectively and protect them from symptoms of burnout.

PMID:39485778 | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0311909

PLoS One. 2024 Nov 1;19(11):e0308628. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0308628. eCollection 2024.

ABSTRACT

Meta-analysis is a statistical technique that combines the results of different environmental experiments regarding the populations, location, time, and so on. These results will differ more than the within-study variance, and the true effects being evaluated differ between studies. Thus, heterogeneity is present and should be measured. There are different estimators that were introduced to estimate between-study variance, which has received a lot of criticism from previous researchers. All of the estimators encountered the same problem, which was the correlation. To minimize the potential biases caused by interventions between the three estimators (i.e., overall effect size, within-study variance, and between-study variance), we proposed a new measure of heterogeneity known as the Environmental Effect Ratio (EER), the treatment-by-lab variability relative to the experimental error, under individual participant data (IPD) using the linear mixed model approach. We assume different between-study variances instead of constant between-study variances. The simulation of this study focuses on the performance of meta-analyses with small sample sizes. We compared our proposed estimator under two different expressions ([Formula: see text], and [Formula: see text]) with the best estimator nominated from previous studies to determine which one is the best performance. Based on the findings, our estimator ([Formula: see text]) was better for estimating between-study variance.

PMID:39485777 | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0308628

PLoS One. 2024 Nov 1;19(11):e0311901. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0311901. eCollection 2024.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Access to and use of urgent and emergency care in the United Kingdom’s National Health Service reduced during COVID-19 related lockdowns but demand reportedly increased since then. We investigated the impact of COVID-19 on urgent and emergency health care services activity in an eastern England population of 1.1 million.

METHODS: We used health care activity data from a municipal health department, recorded at the level of discrete events (such as visits to hospital or ambulance calls) to compare system activity between 2018-2020 (pre-COVID), 2020-2021 (lockdown) and 2021-2023 (post-lockdown), carrying out interrupted time series analyses to describe changes in activity.

RESULTS: Daily emergency department (ED) attendances were 10% (95% confidence interval 9-12%) lower during the lockdown period, and 7% (6-8%) higher in the post-lockdown period than pre-COVID. Attendances arriving by ambulance were 13% (12-14%) lower post-lockdown than pre-COVID, while attendances of arrivals by other means were 17% (16-19%) higher. Post-lockdown, overall attendances were continually reducing. ED waiting times were 45% (44-47%) longer in the post-lockdown period compared to the pre-COVID period and continued to increase post-lockdown. There was a 15% (14-16%) reduction in daily ambulance dispatches post-lockdown versus pre-COVID. Ambulance arrivals with delayed handover to hospital care exceeding 60 minutes increased by 17% (16-18%) post-lockdown versus pre-COVID, and probability of delay showed a continuously upward trend post-lockdown of 20% (19-21%) per year.

CONCLUSION: Patients are facing long waits in EDs to be admitted to hospital, discharged or transferred. This results in delays in ambulances handing over patients and attending to other calls, which may explain decreasing rates of ambulance dispatches. Potential solutions are likely to involve enhancing the flow through and discharge of patients from hospital, and a whole systems approach which considers the capacity of the local health and care infrastructure, including intermediate care and social care.

PMID:39485775 | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0311901

Nucleosides Nucleotides Nucleic Acids. 2024 Nov 1:1-10. doi: 10.1080/15257770.2024.2421302. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Osteoporosis is a common age-related skeletal disease, characterized by changes in the microarchitectural structure of bone tissue and decreased bone mass, especially affecting postmenopausal women. Genetic and environmental factors affecting bone metabolism play a role in the development of osteoporosis. Methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) is an important enzyme involved in the conversion of homocysteine to methionine. Genetic variations in the MTHFR gene lead to impaired function or inactivation of this enzyme. A decrease in MTHFR enzyme activity and an increase in homocysteine levels affect bone metabolism. In this study, we aimed to investigate the relationship between C677T and A1298C polymorphisms and osteoporosis in Turkish postmenopausal women. DNA samples were extracted from 200 volunteers. The PCR-RFLP technique was used to identify the MTHFR gene polymorphisms C677T and A1298C. The statistical significance of the analysis’s results was assessed. C677T genotype and allele frequency distributions were not statistically different between postmenopausal osteoporosis and healthy control groups (p = 0.249, p = 0.754), while A1298C genotype and allele frequency distributions were found to be statistically significant (p = 0.002, p = 0.013). The results of our study showed that the A1298C polymorphism may be a genetic factor associated with osteoporosis in this specific population. However, the C677T polymorphism did not show a significant connection. To gain a more comprehensive understanding of the genetic basis of osteoporosis, future research with larger sample sizes and the consideration of additional genetic and environmental factors is essential. Additionally, it is crucial to account for ethnic disparities, gene-gene interactions, and gene-environment interplays. These insights can inform the development of personalized preventive and therapeutic strategies for individuals at risk of osteoporosis in diverse populations.

PMID:39485384 | DOI:10.1080/15257770.2024.2421302

Elife. 2024 Nov 1;12:RP92854. doi: 10.7554/eLife.92854.

ABSTRACT

Interactions between excitatory and inhibitory neurons are critical to computations in cortical circuits but their organization is difficult to assess with standard electrophysiological approaches. Within the medial entorhinal cortex, representation of location by grid and other spatial cells involves circuits in layer 2 in which excitatory stellate cells interact with each other via inhibitory parvalbumin expressing interneurons. Whether this connectivity is structured to support local circuit computations is unclear. Here, we introduce strategies to address the functional organization of excitatory-inhibitory interactions using crossed Cre- and Flp-driver mouse lines to direct targeted presynaptic optogenetic activation and postsynaptic cell identification. We then use simultaneous patch-clamp recordings from postsynaptic neurons to assess their shared input from optically activated presynaptic populations. We find that extensive axonal projections support spatially organized connectivity between stellate cells and parvalbumin interneurons, such that direct connections are often, but not always, shared by nearby neurons, whereas multisynaptic interactions coordinate inputs to neurons with greater spatial separation. We suggest that direct excitatory-inhibitory synaptic interactions may operate at the scale of grid cell clusters, with local modules defined by excitatory-inhibitory connectivity, while indirect interactions may coordinate activity at the scale of grid cell modules.

PMID:39485383 | DOI:10.7554/eLife.92854