Some of us are most at risk: Systematic review and meta-analysis of correlates of depressive symptoms among healthcare workers during the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a severe psychosocial impact on healthcare workers (HCWs). This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed at evaluating the association between individual features and depressive symptoms reported by HCWs during the pandemic. We searched Medline, Embase, and PsycInfo up to 23 June 2020. We included cross-sectional studies testing the association between individual correlates and depressive symptoms in HCWs during the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. Fourteen studies met inclusion criteria, involving 14,173 HCWs (3,070 with depressive symptoms). Women (OR = 1.50; 95 %CI: 1.28–1.76; I2 = 40.0 %), individuals with suspected/confirmed COVID-19 (OR = 2.10; 95 %CI: 1.64–2.69; I2 = 0 %), and those with an infected family member or friend (OR = 1.67; 95 %CI: 1.37–2.04; I2 = 0%) were more likely to report depressive features, which, instead, were less frequent among doctors (compared with nurses) (OR = 0.80; 95 %CI: 0.66–0.98; I2 = 48.2 %) and HCWs who felt adequately protected (OR = 0.48; 95 %CI: 0.32–0.72; I2 = 36.3 %). Our study provided timely evidence on the correlates of depressive symptoms among HCWs during the pandemic. Early screening is crucial to develop tailored health interventions, redesigning the response to COVID-19

Probing top charged-Higgs production using top polarization at the Large Hadron Collider

We study single top production in association with a charged Higgs in the type II two Higgs doublet model at the Large Hadron Collider. The polarization of the top, reflected in the angular distributions of its decay products, can be a sensitive probe of new physics in its production. We present theoretically expected polarizations of the top for top charged-Higgs production, which is significantly different from that in the closely related process of t-W production in the Standard Model. We then show that an azimuthal symmetry, constructed from the decay lepton angular distribution in the laboratory frame, is a sensitive probe of top polarization and can be used to constrain parameters involved in top charged-Higgs production.Comment: 22 pages, 18 Figures, Discussions about backgrounds and NLO corrections added, figures modified, references added, Version published in JHE

The On-Freezing Phenomenon: Cognitive and Behavioral Aspects

Freezing of gait is a warning sign of Parkinson's disease. One could distinguish off-freezing, which is associated with dopaminergic therapy and to its titration, and it is clinically related to wearing-off phenomenon. Differently, the on-freezing phenomenon seems to be related to a neural disruption of the frontal-parietal-basal ganglia-pontine projections; clinically, it does not respond to therapy modifications or to different drug titration. In a group of patients with on-freezing, we have detected an alteration of focusing attention, an impairment of set-shifting, in addition to poor abstract reasoning and a reduction of planning. These aspects have been even more evident, when compared with the results obtained by a group of PD patients, without freezing

La via peridurale: confronto tra metodiche di somministrazione.

Nel periodo peri-operatorio il controllo del dolore permette di migliorare la qualit\ue0 di vita dei pazienti, riduce le complicanze e permette un pi\uf9 veloce recupero post-operatorio. Un elemento imprescindibile per l\u2019impostazione e il mantenimento di un adeguato trattamento antalgico \ue8 la corretta somministrazione degli analgesici. Il presente lavoro confronta la somministrazione continua e quella intermittente a boli di soluzioni analgesiche per via peridurale. Dai nostri dati emerge che entrambe le modalit\ue0 considerate sono effi caci nel controllo del dolore peri-operatorio nei pazienti affetti da Arteriopatia Ostruttiva Cronica Periferica. Ciononostante, dato che lo schema di somministrazione a boli richiede un impegno organizzativo notevole, si raccomanda l\u2019introduzione dell\u2019analgesia peridurale controllata dal paziente (PCEA, Patient Controlled Epidural Analgesi

Algebraic QFT in Curved Spacetime and quasifree Hadamard states: an introduction

Within this chapter (published as [49]) we introduce the overall idea of the algebraic formalism of QFT on a fixed globally hyperbolic spacetime in the framework of unital $*$-algebras. We point out some general features of CCR algebras, such as simplicity and the construction of symmetry-induced homomorphisms. For simplicity, we deal only with a real scalar quantum field. We discuss some known general results in curved spacetime like the existence of quasifree states enjoying symmetries induced from the background, pointing out the relevant original references. We introduce, in particular, the notion of a Hadamard quasifree algebraic quantum state, both in the geometric and microlocal formulation, and the associated notion of Wick polynomials.Comment: v3: better discussion of Unitary Equivalence, thanks to comments of Ko Sanders. v2: minor corrections, added reference to older work by Sahlmann and Verch. v1: 59 pages, 4 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1008.1776 by other author

PO-078 Role of the ER stress-autophagy axis and mitochondrial metabolism reprogramming in the apoptosis induced by δ-TOCOTRIENOL in prostate cancer

Introduction Castration resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) is an aggressive tumour with still limited therapeutic outcomes. Tocotrienols (TT), vitamin E derivatives, were reported to exert anticancer activity in different tumours. The aim of this study was to assess the effects of δ-TT on human CRPC cells growth and the molecular mechanisms associated with its activity. Material and methods In human normal prostate (RWPE-1) and CRPC (PC3 and DU145) cell lines the effect of δ-TT on cell viability was evaluated by MTT assay; in PC3 and DU145 cells Trypan blue exclusion and colony formation assays were also performed. The expression of apoptosis-, ER stress- and autophagy-related proteins was analysed by Western blot and immunofluorescence assays, and the cytotoxic effect of δ-TT was also assessed using specific inhibitors of these pathways. The effect on mitochondrial metabolism was evaluated analysing the expression of the OXPHOS complexes (Western blot), the mitochondrial activity and mass (flow cytometry), the oxygen consumption (Clark-type oxygen electrode) and the ATP production (colorimetric assay). Results and discussions We demonstrated that δ-TT exerts a cytotoxic effect on PC3 and DU145 but not on RWPE-1 cells. In particular, δ-TT induces caspase 3 and PARP cleavage and cytochrome c release from mitochondria, and its cytotoxic effect is partially blocked by co-treatment with the pan-caspase inhibitor z-VAD-FMK, confirming that δ-TT exerts a pro-apoptotic effect on CRPC cells. We also observed that δ-TT significantly increases the expression of ER stress (BiP, IRE1α, PERK, pEIF2α, ATF4 and CHOP) and autophagy mediators (LC3-II and p62). Using the ER stress inhibitors salubrinal and 4-phenylbutyrate (4-PBA) and the autophagic flux inhibitors 3-methyladenine and chloroquine, we confirmed that the effect of δ-TT is mediated by both these mechanisms. In addition, treatment with salubrinal or 4-PBA impairs δ-TT-induced LC3-II expression, demonstrating that this compound triggers the ER stress-autophagy axis. Finally, we observed that δ-TT severely alters mitochondrial metabolism: the expression of the OXPHOS protein complexes, the mitochondrial activity/mass ratio, the oxygen consumption and the ATP production were significantly reduced after δ-TT treatment. Conclusion These results demonstrate that δ-TT exerts a selective pro-apoptotic effect on human CRPC cells through the activation of the ER stress-autophagy axis and the rewiring of mitochondrial metabolism

Worry about crime in Europe: A model-based small area estimation from the European Social Survey

© The Author(s) 2019. Worry about crime is known to be higher in some European regions than others. However, cross-national surveys, which are the main source of information to map worry about crime across Europe, are designed to be representative of large areas (countries), and regions often suffer from small and unrepresentative sample sizes. This research produces reliable model-based small area estimates of worry about crime at regional level from European Social Survey data, in order to map the phenomenon and examine its macro-level predictors. Model-based small area estimation techniques borrow strength across areas to produce reliable estimates of parameters of interest. Estimates of worry about crime are higher in most South and East European regions, in contrast to Northern and Central Europe

Combining Shapley value and statistics to the analysis of gene expression data in children exposed to air pollution

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In gene expression analysis, statistical tests for differential gene expression provide lists of candidate genes having, individually, a sufficiently low <it>p</it>-value. However, the interpretation of each single <it>p</it>-value within complex systems involving several interacting genes is problematic. In parallel, in the last sixty years, <it>game theory </it>has been applied to political and social problems to assess the power of interacting agents in forcing a decision and, more recently, to represent the relevance of genes in response to certain conditions.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In this paper we introduce a Bootstrap procedure to test the null hypothesis that each gene has the same relevance between two conditions, where the relevance is represented by the Shapley value of a particular coalitional game defined on a microarray data-set. This method, which is called <it>Comparative Analysis of Shapley value </it>(shortly, CASh), is applied to data concerning the gene expression in children differentially exposed to air pollution. The results provided by CASh are compared with the results from a parametric statistical test for testing differential gene expression. Both lists of genes provided by CASh and t-test are informative enough to discriminate exposed subjects on the basis of their gene expression profiles. While many genes are selected in common by CASh and the parametric test, it turns out that the biological interpretation of the differences between these two selections is more interesting, suggesting a different interpretation of the main biological pathways in gene expression regulation for exposed individuals. A simulation study suggests that CASh offers more power than t-test for the detection of differential gene expression variability.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>CASh is successfully applied to gene expression analysis of a data-set where the joint expression behavior of genes may be critical to characterize the expression response to air pollution. We demonstrate a synergistic effect between coalitional games and statistics that resulted in a selection of genes with a potential impact in the regulation of complex pathways.</p

Z' signals in polarised top-antitop final states

We study the sensitivity of top-antitop samples produced at all energy stages of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to the nature of an underlying Z' boson, in presence of full tree level standard model (SM) background effects and relative interferences. We concentrate on differential mass spectra as well as both spatial and spin asymmetries thereby demonstrating that exploiting combinations of these observables will enable one to distinguish between sequential Z's and those pertaining to Left-Right symmetric models as well as E6 inspired ones, assuming realistic final state reconstruction efficiencies and error estimates.Comment: 21 pages, 6 colour figures, 10 table

Holographic c-theorems in arbitrary dimensions

We re-examine holographic versions of the c-theorem and entanglement entropy in the context of higher curvature gravity and the AdS/CFT correspondence. We select the gravity theories by tuning the gravitational couplings to eliminate non-unitary operators in the boundary theory and demonstrate that all of these theories obey a holographic c-theorem. In cases where the dual CFT is even-dimensional, we show that the quantity that flows is the central charge associated with the A-type trace anomaly. Here, unlike in conventional holographic constructions with Einstein gravity, we are able to distinguish this quantity from other central charges or the leading coefficient in the entropy density of a thermal bath. In general, we are also able to identify this quantity with the coefficient of a universal contribution to the entanglement entropy in a particular construction. Our results suggest that these coefficients appearing in entanglement entropy play the role of central charges in odd-dimensional CFT's. We conjecture a new c-theorem on the space of odd-dimensional field theories, which extends Cardy's proposal for even dimensions. Beyond holography, we were able to show that for any even-dimensional CFT, the universal coefficient appearing the entanglement entropy which we calculate is precisely the A-type central charge.Comment: 62 pages, 4 figures, few typo's correcte