Tests for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) viral ribonucleic acid (RNA) using reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) are pivotal to detecting current ...coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and duration of detectable virus indicating potential for infectivity.
We conducted an individual participant data (IPD) systematic review of longitudinal studies of RT-PCR test results in symptomatic SARS-CoV-2. We searched PubMed, LitCOVID, medRxiv, and COVID-19 Living Evidence databases. We assessed risk of bias using a QUADAS-2 adaptation. Outcomes were the percentage of positive test results by time and the duration of detectable virus, by anatomical sampling sites.
Of 5078 studies screened, we included 32 studies with 1023 SARS-CoV-2 infected participants and 1619 test results, from - 6 to 66 days post-symptom onset and hospitalisation. The highest percentage virus detection was from nasopharyngeal sampling between 0 and 4 days post-symptom onset at 89% (95% confidence interval (CI) 83 to 93) dropping to 54% (95% CI 47 to 61) after 10 to 14 days. On average, duration of detectable virus was longer with lower respiratory tract (LRT) sampling than upper respiratory tract (URT). Duration of faecal and respiratory tract virus detection varied greatly within individual participants. In some participants, virus was still detectable at 46 days post-symptom onset.
RT-PCR misses detection of people with SARS-CoV-2 infection; early sampling minimises false negative diagnoses. Beyond 10 days post-symptom onset, lower RT or faecal testing may be preferred sampling sites. The included studies are open to substantial risk of bias, so the positivity rates are probably overestimated.
Purpose
To determine the impact of advanced hybrid closed - loop (AHCL) insulin delivery on quality of life, metabolic control and time in range (TIR) in youth with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM).
...Methods
Twenty-four children and adolescents with T1DM (14 female) aged of 10 to 18 years participated in the study. Mixed methods study design was implemented. Quantitative part of the study was conducted as a longitudinal crossover study with data collection before and at the end of AHCL use. Qualitative data were obtained with modeled interviews of four focus groups before and the end of the period. Clinical data were collected from the electronic medical records.
Results
The use of AHCL significantly improved the quality of life in terms of decreased fear of hypoglycemia (p<0.001), decrease in diabetes-related emotional distress (p<0.001), and increased wellbeing (p=0.003). The mean A1C decreased from 8.55 ± 1.34% (69.9 ± 12.3 mmol/mol) to 7.73 ± 0.42 (61.1 ± 2.2 mmol/mol) (p=0.002) at the end of the study. Mean TIR was 68.22% (± 13.89) before and 78.26 (± 6.29) % (p<0.001) at the end of the study.
Conclusion
The use of advanced hybrid closed loop significantly improved the quality of life and metabolic control in children and adolescents with T1DM.
Efficiency at doing a certain task, at the workplace or otherwise, is strongly influenced by how motivated individuals are. Exploring new ways to motivate employees is often at the top of a company's ...agenda. Traditionally identified motivators in Western economies primarily include salary and prestige, often complemented by meaning, creation, challenge, ownership, identity, etc. We report the results of a survey conducted in Slovenia, involving an ensemble of highly educated employees from various public and private organizations. Employing new methodologies such as network analysis, we find that Slovenians are stimulated by an intricate web of interdependent factors, largely in contrast to the traditional understanding that mainly emphasizes money and prestige. In fact, these key motivators only weakly correlate with the demographic parameters. Unexpectedly, we found the evidence of a general optimism in Slovenian professional life - a tendency of the employees to look at the "bright side of things", thus seeing more clearly the benefits of having something than the drawbacks of not having it. We attribute these particularities to Slovenian recent history, which revolves around gradually embracing the Western (economic) values.
The purpose of the article is to test the relationship between national identities and modernisation. We test the hypotheses that not all forms of identity are equally compatible with modernisation ...as measured by Human Development Index. The less developed societies are characterised by strong ascribed national identities based on birth, territory and religion, but also by strong voluntarist identities based on civic features selected and/or achieved by an individual. While the former decreases with further modernisation, the latter may either decrease or remain at high levels and coexist with instrumental supranational identifications, typical for the most developed countries. The results, which are also confirmed by multilevel regression models, thus demonstrate that increasing modernisation in terms of development contributes to the shifts from classical, especially ascribed, identities towards instrumental identifications. These findings are particularly relevant in the turbulent times increasingly dominated by the hardly predictable effects of the recent mass migrations.
The primary aim of Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) is to enhance technology transfers, resulting in the commercialization of science. Technology transfer has typically been analyzed at the ...individual level of the core research staff or with the focus on the TTO as a whole, overlooking the fact that the university technology transfer is administered by intellectual property (IP) coordinators. This paper focuses on exposing a potentially crucial factor in technology transfer; the effects of cohorts based on imprinting. The imprinting theory implies that imprints are persistent and manifest themselves in the core activities of the IP coordinators' cohorts in the long term. We bring to light the effects of IP coordinators' cohorts on patenting and licensing, and test a conceptual model of inter-cohort variability. We analyze the patenting and licensing data of 18,393 patent cases and 845 licensed cases, handled by 63 IP coordinators. In combination with human resource data, we show that in the technology transfer process, IP coordinators’' cohorts matter. Using discriminant analysis, we demonstrate that some aspects of technology transfer activities are more typical for one cohort than the others. Variations between cohorts suggest that they are influenced by the prevailing practices inside the TTO at the time of hiring. Cohort patterns are also distinct in the two key technology transfer activities (patenting and licensing). Regression analysis shows that cohort effects remain resistant to erosion even when faced with subsequent changes as captured by organizational and individual time-period effects.
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•Enriching the technology transfer debate by emphasizing the role of imprinting, focusing on IP coordinators at technology transfer offices.•Contributing to the imprinting theory by focusing on cohort effects manifestations as a function of cohort membership and observed activities.•A novel inter-cohort variability model shows differences between cohorts: success for patenting and social proximity for licensing.•Effects of cohorts are resistant to erosion indicating that individual and organizational period effects are layered upon them, indicating sedimentation.•Our results highlight the importance of recognizing the silent underpinnings such as cohorts for technology transfer activities.
Experience defined in terms of time, scope, type, density and timing affect performance of highly skilled administrative staff. We apply a multidimensional model to the field of science ...commercialization as a typical multi-goal oriented process. We identify how different conceptualizations of experience models lead to diverse conclusions regarding their effects on facets of performance such as speed, efficiency and revenue. Acknowledging multifaceted goals of science commercialization, we further contribute to the body of work on individual level factors regarding universities' commercialization performance. In this paper we provide evidence from the context of universities' commercialization efforts, relying on administrative records of a Japanese university including 845 transfer cases over a 13-year period (2004–2016). By focusing on coordinators working in a technology transfer office, and the various measurement modes of their experience, we detect several important characteristics. While several experience components affect speed and efficiency of technology transfer, our results show that revenue is determined by interaction components.
•Applying an extended and refined multidimensional experience model to the field of science commercialization•The model includes a layer of ‘mode type’ and an extended array of contextual factors, i.e. object-level factors•Different conceptualizations of experience can lead to diverse conclusions regarding their effects on performance•IP coordinators’ experience as highly skilled administrative staff typically affects performance•Experience has a significant effect on the speed and efficiency of technology transfer, but almost no impact on revenue
An individual’s value system plays an important role in their intimate relationship or marriage. Most marital satisfaction research to date has been carried out in high-income liberal Western ...societies. We conducted an original quantitative empirical survey of virtues and values to examine their effect on relationship quality and stability in a sample of 511 respondents from Slovenia, a post-socialist society in transition. The results showed that respondents rated health, love, and safety at the top of their hierarchy of values. The key finding was that the presence of love was associated with an individual’s subjective perception of relationship quality but had no effect on the self-evaluation of relationship stability. In addition to love, both family safety and comfort were significant correlates of relationship quality while self-respect was negatively correlated with relationship quality. Only excitement was found to have a statistically significant effect on relationship stability.
Abstract
Background
Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is an important diagnosis in critical care. VAP research is complicated by the lack of agreed diagnostic criteria and reference standard test ...criteria. Our aim was to review which reference standard tests are used to evaluate novel index tests for suspected VAP.
Methods
We conducted a comprehensive search using electronic databases and hand reference checks. The Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, CINHAL, EMBASE, and web of science were searched from 2008 until November 2018. All terms related to VAP diagnostics in the intensive treatment unit were used to conduct the search. We adopted a checklist from the critical appraisal skills programme checklist for diagnostic studies to assess the quality of the included studies.
Results
We identified 2441 records, of which 178 were selected for full-text review. Following methodological examination and quality assessment, 44 studies were included in narrative data synthesis. Thirty-two (72.7%) studies utilised a sole microbiological reference standard; the remaining 12 studies utilised a composite reference standard, nine of which included a mandatory microbiological criterion. Histopathological criteria were optional in four studies but mandatory in none.
Conclusions
Nearly all reference standards for VAP used in diagnostic test research required some microbiological confirmation of infection, with BAL culture being the most common reference standard used.
No routine laboratory biomarkers perform well enough in diagnosing COVID-19 in isolation for them to be used as a standalone diagnostic test or to help clinicians prioritize patients for treatment. ...Instead, other diagnostic tests are needed. The aim of this work was to statistically summarise routine laboratory biomarker measurements in COVID-19-positive and -negative patients to inform future work. A systematic literature review and meta-analysis were performed. The search included names of commonly used, routine laboratory tests in the UK NHS, and focused on research papers reporting laboratory results of patients diagnosed with COVID-19. A random effects meta-analysis of the standardized mean difference between COVID-19-positive and -negative groups was conducted for each biomarker. When comparing reported laboratory biomarker results, we identified decreased white blood cell, neutrophil, lymphocyte, eosinophil, and platelet counts; while lactate dehydrogenase, aspartate aminotransferase, and alanine aminotransferase were elevated in COVID-19-positive compared to COVID-19-negative patients. Differences were identified across a number of routine laboratory biomarkers between COVID-19-positive and -negative patients. Further research is required to identify whether routine laboratory biomarkers can be used in the development of a clinical scoring system to aid with triage of patients.
Fissure sealants are effective caries preventive measure. However, a dilemma has been expressed more than once, whether incompletely sealed fissures provides sufficient protection against caries. ...Dental examinations were performed in 88 children, aged 8 and then 4 years later at 12 years. All first permanent molars (FPMs), as diagnosed at the age of 8, were divided into three groups: nonsealed, incompletely and completely sealed. Four years later caries incidence and changes in presence and quality of fissure sealant were analyzed. At the age of 8 and 12 mean DMFT were 0.73 ± 1.24 and 3.48 ± 3.04, respectively. 71.59% of the 8‐year‐olds and 78.41% of the 12‐year‐olds had at least one sealed FPM. At the age of 8, 154 FPMs were completely sealed and 42 FPMs were incompletely sealed. Four years later, 81.17%, 71.43% and 69.4% of FPMs were healthy (sound or with noncavitated caries) in the baseline groups completely sealed, incompletely sealed and nonsealed FPMs, respectively. Incompletely sealed fissures were more susceptible to caries development than completely sealed fissures. It is important that incompletely sealed fissures are resealed as soon as possible.
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