Dental Disorders and Salivary Changes in Patients with Laryngopharyngeal Reflux

Background: Laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR) is a common inflammatory condition of the upper aerodigestive tract tissues related to the effects of gastroduodenal content reflux, characterized by a wide variety of clinical manifestations. The aim of our study was to evaluate the possible association between dental disorders and LRP, focusing on the role of salivary changes. Methods: Patient’s dental status was evaluated according to Schiff Index Sensitivity Scale (SISS), Basic Erosive Wear Examination (BEWE) and Decayed, Missing, and Filled Teeth (DMFT) scores. Reflux-associated symptoms were assessed according to Reflux symptom index (RSI). A qualitative and quantitative examination of saliva was performed. Results: Patients suffering from LPR had a higher incidence of dental disorders, regardless the presence of salivary pepsin, and thus, statistically significant higher scores of RSI (p = 0.0001), SISS (p = 0.001), BEWE (p < 0.001) and VAS (p < 0.001). Moreover, they had lower salivary flow compared with healthy patients. Conclusions: The finding of demineralization and dental caries on intraoral evaluation must raise the suspicion of LRP. Reflux treatments should also be aimed at correcting salivary alterations, in order to preserve the buffering capacity and salivary pH, thus preventing mucosal and dental damage

Does the end justify the means? The role of organizational communication among work‐from‐home employees during the covid‐19 pandemic

During the first months of 2020, the world, and Italy at an early stage, went through the Covid‐19 emergency that had a great impact on individual and collective health, but also on working processes. The mandatory remote working and the constant use of technology for employees raised different implications related to technostress and psycho‐physical disorders. This study aimed to detect, in such a period of crisis and changes, the role of organizational communication considering the mediating role of both technostress and self‐efficacy, with psycho‐physical disorders as outcome. The research involved 530 workers working from home. A Structural Equations Model was estimated, revealing that organizational communication is positively associated with self‐efficacy and negatively with technostress and psycho‐physical disorders. As mediators, technostress is positively associated with psycho‐physical disorders, whereas self‐efficacy is negatively associated. As regards mediated effects, results showed negative associations between organizational communication and psycho‐physical disorders through both technostress and self‐efficacy. This study highlighted the potential protective role of organizational communication that could buffer the effect of technostress and enhance a personal resource, self‐efficacy, which is functional to the reduction of psycho‐physical disorders. This study contributed to literature underlying the role of communication in the current crisis and consequent reorganization of the working processes

“Everything Will Be Fine”: A Study on the Relationship between Employees’ Perception of Sustainable HRM Practices and Positive Organizational Behavior during COVID19

Sustainable human resource management practices represent one of the main organizational strategy to survive and to prosper within the fast-moving current scenario. According to this view, sustainability is strictly linked to the consideration of the unique and distinctive value that each human resource means for organizations. The recent COVID19 pandemic is having a serious impact on organizations and on their employees, it is profoundly changing the working modalities, mainly introducing smart working practices that were showed to have significant consequences on workers’ wellbeing. This study aims to investigate employees’ perception of sustainable HRM in the frame of the COVID19 emergency, exploring if and to what extent perceptions of involvement and organizational support together with individual coping strategies associated with organizational change could influence positive organizational behaviors, namely organizational engagement and extra-role behavior. The research involved 549 participants who completed a self-report online questionnaire encompassing psycho-social measures of the abovementioned variables. Results confirmed the important role played by sustainable HRM practices both for the capitalization of human resources and of organizational performance in a time of great uncertainty and global crisis. Implications for theory and HRM practice development were also discussed

A New Academic Quality at Work Tool (AQ@workT) to Assess the Quality of Life at Work in the Italian Academic Context

The present study provides evidence for a valid and reliable tool, the Academic Quality at Work Tool (AQ@workT), to investigate the quality of life at work in academics within the Italian university sector. The AQ@workT was developed by the QoL@Work research team, namely a group of expert academics in the field of work and organizational psychology affiliated with the Italian Association of Psychologists. The tool is grounded in the job demands-resources model and its psychometric properties were assessed in three studies comprising a wide sample of lecturers, researchers, and professors: a pilot study (N = 120), a calibration study (N = 1084), and a validation study (N = 1481). Reliability and content, construct, and nomological validity were supported, as well as measurement invariance across work role (researchers, associate professors, and full professors) and gender. Evidence from the present study shows that the AQ@workT represents a useful and reliable tool to assist university management to enhance quality of life, to manage work-related stress, and to mitigate the potential for harm to academics, particularly during a pandemic. Future studies, such as longitudinal tests of the AQ@workT, should test predictive validity among the variables in the tool

Genetic dissection of the relationships between grain yield components by genome-wide association mapping in a collection of tetraploid wheats

Increasing grain yield potential in wheat has been a major target of most breeding programs. Genetic advance has been frequently hindered by negative correlations among yield components that have been often observed in segregant populations and germplasm collections. A tetraploid wheat collection was evaluated in seven environments and genotyped with a 90K SNP assay to identify major and stable quantitative trait loci (QTL) for grain yield per spike (GYS), kernel number per spike (KNS) and thousand-kernel weight (TKW), and to analyse the genetic relationships between the yield components at QTL level. The genome-wide association analysis detected eight, eleven and ten QTL for KNS, TKW and GYS, respectively, significant in at least three environments or two environments and the mean across environments. Most of the QTL for TKW and KNS were found located in different marker intervals, indicating that they are genetically controlled independently by each other. Out of eight KNS QTL, three were associated to significant increases of GYS, while the increased grain number of five additional QTL was completely or partially compensated by decreases in grain weight, thus producing no or reduced effects on GYS. Similarly, four consistent and five suggestive TKW QTL resulted in visible increase of GYS, while seven additional QTL were associated to reduced effects in grain number and no effects on GYS. Our results showed that QTL analysis for detecting TKW or KNS alleles useful for improving grain yield potential should consider the pleiotropic effects of the QTL or the association to other QTLs

COVID-19: Effects of lockdown on adenotonsillar hypertrophy and related diseases in children

Background: In response to the coronavirus pandemic 2019 (COVID-19), Italy established the national school closings from March 5, 2020. It has been shown that during school closures, there are significant decreases in the diagnoses of the respiratory infections. This has brought as well to a reduction in all those symptoms related to adenotonsillar hypertrophy. Methods: The study included 162 children, aged between 3 and 13 years, waiting for adenoidectomy and/or tonsillectomy, eventually combined with tympanocentesis or tube insertion. Parents have been called to answer a telephone interview aimed at detecting how the symptoms related to adenotonsillar hypertrophy were changing during lockdown. Results: There was an improvement in the overall symptomatology of children during the lockdown period. The value attributed by parents to the children's general assessment during the lockdown period decreased significatively during the quarantine (p = 0,0000). Conclusions: The present study demonstrates that lockdown can have a positive impact on those specific diseases derived from precocious socialization and that it results to be particularly effective for the most vulnerable children. Indeed, lockdown has resulted to be so efficient that it has caused a modification in a medical and surgical therapeutic indication

Relative Reactivities of Isopropyl, Ethyl and Methyl-groups In the Gas-phase Side-chain Deprotonation of Alkylaromatic Radical Cations

The relative reactivity of Me2CH, Et, and Me groups in the gas-phase side-chain deprotonation of alkylarom. radical cations by pyridines are detd. by using Fourier transform mass spectrometry