402 research outputs found

    Is team resilience more than the sum of its parts?:A quantitative study on emergency healthcare teams during the COVID-19 pandemic

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    Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, emergency healthcare workers have come under even more pressure than before, threatening the workers’ mental health and the continuity of care delivered by their teams. This study aims to investigate what conditions increase individual and team resilience, referring to the ability to “bounce back” from stressful situations. We also assess whether team resilience is the sum of the individual resilience of team members, or whether other conditions enhance team resilience and thus continuity of care, despite limited individual resilience. We collected survey data from 129 emergency healthcare team members in the Netherlands to examine to what extent transformational leadership and team familiarity influence the level of team resilience, either directly or mediated by individual resilience, accounting for psychological characteristics and social support. The results show two distinct pathways to enhance team resilience, directly by familiarizing team members with each other and by mobilizing family support, and indirectly but with a much weaker effect, by encouraging team members’ individual resilience through transformational leadership and staffing optimistic team members with high levels of self-efficacy

    Proximity effects in the superconductor / heavy fermion bilayer system Nb / CeCu_6

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    We have investigated the proximity effect between a superconductor (Nb) and a 'Heavy Fermion' system (CeCu_6) by measuring critical temperatures TcT_c and parallel critical fields H_{c2}^{\parallel}(T) of Nb films with varying thickness deposited on 75 nm thick films of CeCu_6, and comparing the results with the behavior of similar films deposited on the normal metal Cu. For Nb on CeCu_6 we find a strong decrease of T_c with decreasing Nb thickness and a finite critical thickness of the order of 10 nm. Also, dimensional crossovers in H_{c2}^{\parallel}(T) are completely absent, in strong contrast with Nb/Cu. Analysis of the data by a proximity effect model based on the Takahashi-Tachiki theory shows that the data can be explained by taking into account both the high effective mass (or low electronic diffusion constant), {\it and} the large density of states at the Fermi energy which characterize the Heavy Fermion metal.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figure. Manuscript has been submitted to a refereed journa

    The rationale for Janus kinase inhibitors for the treatment of spondyloarthritis

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    The pathogenesis of SpA is multifactorial and involves a range of immune cell types and cytokines, many of which utilize Janus kinase (JAK) pathways for signaling. In this review, we summarize the animal and pre-clinical data that have demonstrated the effects of JAK blockade on the underlying molecular mechanisms of SpA and provide a rationale for JAK inhibition for the treatment of SpA. We also review the available clinical trial data evaluating JAK inhibitors tofacitinib, baricitinib, peficitinib, filgotinib and upadacitinib in PsA, AS and related inflammatory diseases, which have demonstrated the efficacy of these agents across a range of SpA-associated disease manifestations. The available clinical trial data, supported by pre-clinical animal model studies demonstrate that JAK inhibition is a promising therapeutic strategy for the treatment of SpA and may offer the potential for improvements in multiple articular and extra-articular disease manifestations of PsA and AS

    The Haroche-Ramsey experiment as a generalized measurement

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    A number of atomic beam experiments, related to the Ramsey experiment and a recent experiment by Brune et al., are studied with respect to the question of complementarity. Three different procedures for obtaining information on the state of the incoming atom are compared. Positive operator-valued measures are explicitly calculated. It is demonstrated that, in principle, it is possible to choose the experimental arrangement so as to admit an interpretation as a joint non-ideal measurement yielding interference and ``which-way'' information. Comparison of the different measurements gives insight into the question of which information is provided by a (generalized) quantum mechanical measurement. For this purpose the subspaces of Hilbert-Schmidt space, spanned by the operators of the POVM, are determined for different measurement arrangements and different values of the parameters.Comment: REVTeX, 22 pages, 5 figure

    Endothelial Calcineurin Signaling Restrains Metastatic Outgrowth by Regulating Bmp2.

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    Calcineurin/NFAT signaling is active in endothelial cells and is proposed to be an essential component of the tumor angiogenic response. Here, we investigated the role of endothelial calcineurin signaling in vivo in physiological and pathological angiogenesis and tumor metastasis. We show that this pathway is dispensable for retinal and tumor angiogenesis, but it is implicated in vessel stabilization. While ablation of endothelial calcineurin does not affect the progression of primary tumors or tumor cell extravasation, it does potentiate the outgrowth of lung metastases. We identify Bmp2 as a downstream target of the calcineurin/NFAT pathway in lung endothelium, potently inhibiting cancer cell growth by stimulating differentiation. We reveal a dual role of calcineurin/NFAT signaling in vascular regression or stabilization and in the tissue-specific production of an angiocrine factor restraining cancer cell outgrowth. Our results suggest that, besides targeting the immune system, post-transplantation immunosuppressive therapy with calcineurin inhibitors directly targets the endothelium, contributing to aggressive cancer progression

    Delayed diagnosis of oral squamous cell carcinoma: a case series

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    <p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>In malign neoplasms, oral cancer is one of the important causes of mortality and morbidity. Squamous cell carcinoma is the most common form of oral cancers in adults and is related to risk factors such as smoking and alcohol consumption.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>In this article, we present three case reports of oral squamous cell carcinomas with delayed diagnosis. The first patient was a 52-year-old Turkish man, the second patient was a 61-year-old Turkish man and the third patient was a 60-year-old Turkish woman. All were referred to the Ankara University Faculty of Dentistry with pain, swelling and various complaints in their jaws.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Early diagnosis is of vital importance for the prognosis of the patients with oral squamous cell carcinomas. For this reason, dentists play a crucial role in the early detection and prevention of oral cancers.</p
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