The implementation and first insights of the French-speaking Swiss programme for monitoring self-harm.

Self-harm is a major risk factor for suicide but remains poorly documented. No data on self-harm in French-speaking Switzerland exist. To address this deficiency, the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health commissioned a specific self-harm monitoring programme. We present and discuss its implementation and first findings. Every patient aged 18–65 years presenting for self-harm to the emergency departments of the Lausanne and Neuchâtel general hospitals were included in the monitoring programme over a 10-month period (December 2016 to September 2017). Clinicians collected anonymous sociodemographic and clinical data. The sample included 490 patients (54.9% female and 45.1% male) for 554 episodes of self-harm, showing a higher proportion of patients aged 18–34 (49.2%) than older age groups (35–49, 33.7% and 50–65, 17.1%). Patients were mostly single (56.1%) and in problematic socioeconomic situations (65.7%). Self-poisoning was the most commonly used method (58.2%) and was preferred by women (71% of females and 42.5% of males, Fisher’s exact test, p <0.001) and the majority of patients (53.3%) had experienced at least one previous episode of self-harm. The self-harm rate was 220 per 100,000 inhabitants in Lausanne and 140 in Neuchâtel. Suicidal intent was clear for 50.6% of the overall sample, unclear for 25.1% and absent for 24.3%. It differed significantly between sites (χ2(2) = 9.068, p = 0.011) as Lausanne reported more incidents of unclear intent (27.7% versus 17.4% in Neuchâtel) and Neuchâtel more incidents with absence of intent (33.1% versus 21.3% in Lausanne). In Lausanne, patients more frequently resorted to methods such as jumping from a height (11.4%) and hanging (9%) than in Neuchâtel (1.6% and 4.9%, Fisher’s exact test, p = 0.006). Our results are globally consistent with previous research on self-harm. We found significant inter-site differences in methods, suicidal intent and self-harm rates. Our findings highlight the importance of implementing local self-harm monitoring to identify specific at-risk groups and develop targeted preventive intervention

Structural and Functional Hierarchy in Photosynthetic Energy Conversion—from Molecules to Nanostructures

Basic principles of structural and functional requirements of photosynthetic energy conversion in hierarchically organized machineries are reviewed. Blueprints of photosynthesis, the energetic basis of virtually all life on Earth, can serve the basis for constructing artificial light energy-converting molecular devices. In photosynthetic organisms, the conversion of light energy into chemical energy takes places in highly organized fine-tunable systems with structural and functional hierarchy. The incident photons are absorbed by light-harvesting complexes, which funnel the excitation energy into reaction centre (RC) protein complexes containing redox-active chlorophyll molecules; the primary charge separations in the RCs are followed by vectorial transport of charges (electrons and protons) in the photosynthetic membrane. RCs possess properties that make their use in solar energy-converting and integrated optoelectronic systems feasible. Therefore, there is a large interest in many laboratories and in the industry toward their use in molecular devices. RCs have been bound to different carrier matrices, with their photophysical and photochemical activities largely retained in the nano-systems and with electronic connection to conducting surfaces. We show examples of RCs bound to carbon-based materials (functionalized and non-functionalized single- and multiwalled carbon nanotubes), transitional metal oxides (ITO) and conducting polymers and porous silicon and characterize their photochemical activities. Recently, we adapted several physical and chemical methods for binding RCs to different nanomaterials. It is generally found that the P(+)(Q(A)Q(B))(−) charge pair, which is formed after single saturating light excitation is stabilized after the attachment of the RCs to the nanostructures, which is followed by slow reorganization of the protein structure. Measuring the electric conductivity in a direct contact mode or in electrochemical cell indicates that there is an electronic interaction between the protein and the inorganic carrier matrices. This can be a basis of sensing element of bio-hybrid device for biosensor and/or optoelectronic applications

Floorball helyzetének és passzív sportfogyasztásának vizsgálata egy kutatás tükrében

Research and studies done on floorbal is usually associated with medical studies, however the research and analisys of other fields peakd little interest.Thus, the aim of the study was to present the situation of floorball in Hungary and to examine the opinion of passive sports consumers about the sport. Within this we deal with the competition system of our country and the organizational structure of the federation. In our primary research, from a viewer perspective, we were interviewed as passive consumers in a questionnaire survey about their relationship to floorball. In the questionnaire we discussed whether they had ever met this sport and whether they had seen it or what attracted them to the match. We also tested their willingness to pay. The results were compared with the opinion of one of the domestic leaders of the sport, which in many cases agreed with the results. The questionnaire was completed by 153 people, more than 95% of whom had heard of the sport and most had the opportunity to become familiar with floorball at primary school. 65% of those surveyed have already seen a live floorball match that they have mostly played with friends / acquaintances. This young sport can become more and more popular among young people, not only as a complementary sport.A floorball sportággal kapcsolatos kutatások általában orvostudományhoz kötődnek, más területen kevés elemzés látott napvilágot. Így a tanulmány célja az volt, hogy bemutassuk a floorball sportág helyzetét hazánkban és passzív sport fogyasztók véleményét vizsgáljuk a sportágról. Ezen belül foglalkozunk hazánk versenyrendszerével, a szövetség szervezeti felépítésével és a sport népszerűségével. Primer kutatásunk során a nézők aspektusából, mint passzív fogyasztókat kérdeztük meg egy kérdőíves felmérés során, hogy milyen kapcsolatuk van a floorball sportággal. A kérdőívben kitértünk arra, hogy találkoztak-e már ezzel a sportággal, valamint, hogy láttak-e már, vagy mi vonzotta ki őket a mérkőzésre. Vizsgáltuk a fizetési hajlandóságukat is. Az eredményeket összevetettük a sportág egyik hazai vezetőjének véleményével, amely sok esetben megegyezett az eredményekkel. A kérdőívet 153 fő töltötte ki, melyeknek több mint 95%-a hallott a sportágról és legnagyobb százalékban már általános iskolában volt lehetősége ismerkedni a floorballal. A megkérdezettek 65%-a már látott élőben floorball mérkőzést, amelyet főleg barátaival/ismerőseivel látogatott. Ez a fiatal sportág egyre népszerűbb lehet a fiatalok körében nemcsak kiegészítő sportágként

Reaction centers in lipids

Specific functional role of physiologically important lipids of the photosynthetic membrane (phosphatidylcholine, cardiolipin and phosphatidylglycerol) was investigated on the thermodynamic and kinetic requirements of the charge movements in bacterial reaction centers. The major effect of these lipids is to increase the stabilization of the separated caharges induced by light excitation during the photosynthetic energy conversion. It can be achieved by (1) changing the redox midpoint potential of the QA/QA- and QB/QB- redox couples, which results in the increase of the free energy gap that drives the QA– to QB electron transfer or (2) by changing the quinone binding/unbinding equilibrium. This study provides evidence that from kinetic point of view the P+QA-QB P+QAQB- charge transfer is mainly driven by the change in the enthalpy in LDAO and PC, whereas the entropy contribution is larger if negatively charged lipids are introduced

Enthalpy/entropy driven activation of the first interquinone electron transfer in bacterial photosynthetic reaction centers embedded in vesicles of physiologically important phospholipids.

The thermodynamics and kinetics of light-induced electron transfer in bacterial photosynthetic RCs are sensitive to physiologically important lipids (phosphatidylcholine, cardiolipin and phosphatidylglycerol) in the environment. The analysis of the temperature-dependence of the rate of the P(+)Q(A)(-)Q(B)-->P(+)Q(A)Q(B)(-) interquinone electron transfer revealed high enthalpy change of activation in zwitterionic or neutral micelles and vesicles and low enthalpy change of activation in vesicles constituted of negatively charged phospholipids. The entropy change of activation was compensated by the changes of enthalpy, thus the free energy change of activation ( approximately 500 meV) did not show large variation in vesicles of different lipids

Anisotropic Circular Dichroism of Light-Harvesting Complex II in Oriented Lipid Bilayers: Theory Meets Experiment

Anisotropic circular dichroism (ACD) spectroscopy of macroscopically aligned molecules reveals additional information about their excited states that is lost in the CD of randomly oriented solutions. ACD spectra of light-harvesting complex II (LHCII)-the main peripheral antenna of photosystem II in plants-in oriented lipid bilayers were recorded from the far-UV to the visible wavelength region. ACD spectra show a drastically enhanced magnitude and level of detail compared to the isotropic CD spectra, resolving a greater number of bands and weak optical transitions. Exciton calculations show that the spectral features in the chlorophyll Q y region are well-reproduced by an existing Hamiltonian for LHCII, providing further evidence for the identity of energy sinks at chlorophylls a603 and a610 in the stromal layer and chlorophylls a604 and a613 in the lumina] layer. We propose ACD spectroscopy to be a valuable tool linking the three-dimensional structure and the photophysical properties of pigment-protein complexes