Women in higher education: A brief report on stress during COVID-19

Higher education institutions have evolved into a more stressful environment. Women have been experiencing higher levels of stress than their male counterparts. With higher education adopting to the onset of the pandemic, this brief report studied women’s perceived stress in relation to perceived organizational and supervisory support, and age during times of crisis. In an era of social distancing, quarantines, and lockdowns, the findings suggest that women’s perceived stress is negatively related to age, perceived organizational support, and perceived supervisory support. Society as we once knew it pre-pandemic will never be the same. Higher education is inevitably going to have to manage the aftermath, a new normal that can only be as effective as the employees that help keep the organization running

Theory of Rare-earth Infinite Layer Nickelates

The recent discovery of superconductivity in oxygen-reduced monovalent nickelates has raised a new platform for the study of unconventional superconductivity, with similarities and differences with the cuprate high temperature superconductors. In this paper we discuss general trends of the infinite-layer nickelate RNiO$_2$ with rare-earth R spanning across the lanthanide series. We determine that the role of oxygen charge transfer diminishes when traversing from La to Lu, with a prominent role played by rare-earth 5d electrons near the Fermi level. A decrease in lattice volume indicates that the magnetic exchange additionally grows, which may be favorable for superconductivity. However compensation effects from the itinerant 5d electrons present a closer analogy to Kondo lattices, indicating a more complex interplay between charge transfer, bandwidth renormalization, compensation, and magnetic exchange

Rationale and design of the PeriOperative ISchemic Evaluation-3 (POISE-3): a randomized controlled trial evaluating tranexamic acid and a strategy to minimize hypotension in noncardiac surgery

Background For patients undergoing noncardiac surgery, bleeding and hypotension are frequent and associated with increased mortality and cardiovascular complications. Tranexamic acid (TXA) is an antifibrinolytic agent with the potential to reduce surgical bleeding; however, there is uncertainty about its efficacy and safety in noncardiac surgery. Although usual perioperative care is commonly consistent with a hypertension-avoidance strategy (i.e., most patients continue their antihypertensive medications throughout the perioperative period and intraoperative mean arterial pressures of 60 mmHg are commonly accepted), a hypotension-avoidance strategy may improve perioperative outcomes. Methods The PeriOperative Ischemic Evaluation (POISE)-3 Trial is a large international randomized controlled trial designed to determine if TXA is superior to placebo for the composite outcome of life-threatening, major, and critical organ bleeding, and non-inferior to placebo for the occurrence of major arterial and venous thrombotic events, at 30 days after randomization. Using a partial factorial design, POISE-3 will additionally determine the effect of a hypotension-avoidance strategy versus a hypertension-avoidance strategy on the risk of major cardiovascular events, at 30 days after randomization. The target sample size is 10,000 participants. Patients ≥45 years of age undergoing noncardiac surgery, with or at risk of cardiovascular and bleeding complications, are randomized to receive a TXA 1 g intravenous bolus or matching placebo at the start and at the end of surgery. Patients, health care providers, data collectors, outcome adjudicators, and investigators are blinded to the treatment allocation. Patients on ≥ 1 chronic antihypertensive medication are also randomized to either of the two blood pressure management strategies, which differ in the management of patient antihypertensive medications on the morning of surgery and on the first 2 days after surgery, and in the target mean arterial pressure during surgery. Outcome adjudicators are blinded to the blood pressure treatment allocation. Patients are followed up at 30 days and 1 year after randomization. Discussion Bleeding and hypotension in noncardiac surgery are common and have a substantial impact on patient prognosis. The POISE-3 trial will evaluate two interventions to determine their impact on bleeding, cardiovascular complications, and mortality. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03505723. Registered on 23 April 2018

Correction to: Cluster identification, selection, and description in Cluster randomized crossover trials: the PREP-IT trials

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article

Accidental death in a pediatric population in Newfoundland and Labrador: an analysis of cases of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner

Introduction: Accidental death is the leading manner of pediatric death worldwide. In Newfoundland & Labrador (NL) published assessments of accidental pediatric death are limited. Methods: A retrospective cohort study of cases of accidental death in children and youth aged 0- to 21- years that occurred between January 1, 2004, and December 31, 2013 and were referred to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of NL for investigation was carried out. Comparison was made between accidental death in NL and the provinces of New Brunswick (NB) and Manitoba (MB) matching ages and years of occurrence. Results: A total of 139 cases occurred with a mean age of 15.8 (+/-4.9) years. Males accounted for more cases than females (p<0.001). Leading cause of death was mechanical trauma due to an MVA (52%) (p<0.001). Within NL regional differences were present with the highest incidence of all accidental death occurring in the Labrador Grenfell Health region (p=0.002). When comparing NL to MB, rates of accidents were comparable. While comparing NL to NB saw more differences overall, among specific causes of death, and among sexes. Conclusion: Accident incidence differed significantly between the regions of the province with rural areas seeing more accidents than urban areas. NL was comparable for accident incidence to the province of MB and lower than NB in overall accidental death, cause specific death and among sexes

Correction: Sangadala, S. et al. FK506 Induces Ligand-Independent Activation of the Bone Morphogenetic Protein Pathway and Osteogenesis. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2019, 20, 1900

The authors wish to make the following corrections to this paper [...

Rejecting Darwinian evolution: The effects of education, church tradition, and individual theological stance among UK churchgoers

A sample of 2232 committed churchgoers from a range of churches in the UK completed a questionnaire that included a measure of rejection of Darwinian evolution. Respondents with undergraduate or postgraduate qualifications had slightly lower odds of rejecting evolution than those without degrees, but whether qualifications were in non-biological science, biology or theology made little difference to the likelihood of rejection. Those who attended Anglican or Methodist (AM) churches were much less likely to reject evolution than those who attended Evangelical or Pentecostal (EP) churches, but the effect of education on reducing rejection was similar in both groups. Individual theological conservatism was strongly associated with rejection, but whereas liberals showed declining rejection with increased education, there was no such effect for conservatives. Frequent church attendance and Bible reading both predicted rejection, and the effect of Bible reading was most pronounced among AM churchgoers. Higher education of any kind may reduce the likelihood of rejection of evolution among many UK churchgoers, but theological conservatives from any tradition will tend to maintain their belief that Darwinian evolution does not explain the origin of species whatever their educational experience