The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the working, personal and health conditions of health professionals has been highlighted, although it is necessary to verify whether certain instruments used in ...research on this topic have sufficient psychometric support for their use. This need was the main motivation for undertaking the present study. We aimed to analyse the psychometric properties of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES-9) in a sample of active health care workers during the pandemic.
A cross-sectional study was conducted from March to August 2020 with 2326 active health care workers (78.7% women). The instruments that were applied included the UWES-9 scale, the Sense of Coherence scale (SOC-13), the Goldberg General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) and an item on self-perceived health.
The three-factor structure related to the correlation of pairs of errors presented the best fit. The reliability of the UWES-9 was highlighted by the adequate internal consistency of the items, the existence of invariance according to gender, and its convergent and discriminant validity.
The findings of this work support the use of the UWES-9 to assess the work engagement of health personnel during the COVID-19 pandemic and identify it as an adequate measure of this psychological variable and the constructs that comprise it.
Objective
There is a lack of available information on the trajectories of attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) dimensions during adulthood. This study investigates the course and the ...predictors of change for each ADHD domain in a clinical sample of adults with ADHD.
Method
Adults with ADHD (n = 344) were followed up for 7 years, with a final retention rate of 66.0%. Trajectories of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity and their potential predictors were examined.
Results
On average, symptoms declined in all ADHD domains during follow‐up. Despite this, rises in inattentive, hyperactive, and impulsive symptoms were observed in approximately 13%, 25%, and 17% of patients respectively. Different predictors influenced the trajectory of each ADHD dimension. Oppositional defiant disorder and social phobia were associated with the maintenance of symptoms, while alcohol use disorder was associated with both maintenance and rise of symptoms.
Conclusion
Unexpectedly, a rise in the symptoms after 7 years was not uncommon in adults with ADHD. Prevalent comorbidities have the potential to influence the neurodevelopment and the trajectory of ADHD. Therefore, such predictors should be investigated in population cohorts to better characterize the course of ADHD. Additionally, these findings may be relevant in prevention studies and in strategies for ADHD treatment.
Strange matter is believed to exist in the cores of neutron stars based on simple kinematics. If this is true, then hyperon-nucleon interactions will play a significant part in the neutron star ...equation of state. Yet, compared to other elastic scattering processes, there is very little data on Λ-N scattering. This experiment utilized the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer (CLAS) detector to study the Λp→Λp elastic scattering cross section in the incident Λ momentum range 0.9-2.0 GeV/c. These are the first data on this reaction since the 1970s. The new cross sections have significantly better accuracy and precision than the existing world data, and the techniques developed here can also be used in future experiments.
•90% of failures in two AWCS plants were originated by the abrasive at attrition.•Waste glass content and transportation rate are key factors affecting the failure.•Key design aspects: elbows’ radius ...of curvature and junctions of straight sections.
Conventional municipal waste management systems based on collecting and storing waste for future management are cost-effective and flexible. These systems present significant problems such as odours, plagues and hygiene problems caused by their storage and greenhouse gas emissions from garbage trucks used for the transport of waste. The Automated Waste Collection System (AWCS) and Automated Vacuum Waste Collection (AVWC) systems, in which waste is transported directly underground to the processing plants, are efficient collection systems and respectful of the environment as alternatives to traditional systems. The pneumatic system reduces the value of the per capita generation of general waste. The present study explains the origin of pipe failure in two different AWCS factories, as well as the identification of the failure phenomena. To carry out the study, a classification of 90 failure cases by primary cause was performed, followed by recommendations to avoid these failures in the future. Moreover, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation was performed in order to help in the failure determination and the key recommendations to avoid the most common and frequent failures.
We analyzed the influence of the stratification process in the vertical distribution of larval fish in a microtidal coastal Mediterranean zone. By applying a Self Organizing Maps (SOM) technique, we ...could analyze a complex dataset accounting for non-linear processes. The analysis integrated multivariate data on larval fish and environmental parameters in two depth strata through two-time components (nictimeral and fortnightly through the main spawning seasons), and considered size-based information. Although causal relationships cannot be constructed, the use of SOM analyses enabled the description of the whole system evolution overcoming the constraints of linear approaches in complex multivariate datasets with multiple dependencies in the data. We contend that this approach can help to unveil the intricate patterns of settlement/recruitment of young fish, which is often hampered by the rigidity of some formal statistical approaches.
•Larval fish assemblages analysis with Self Organizing Maps allows overcoming linear constraints.•Self Organizing Maps analysis allowed the description of the whole coastal multispecific system.•Self Organizing Maps also allowed identifying ontogenetic differences in vertical positions.•Differences in larval fish vertical strategies before & after the establishment of stratification.
The Heavy Photon Search test detector Battaglieri, M.; Boyarinov, S.; Bueltmann, S. ...
Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section A, Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment,
03/2015, Volume:
777, Issue:
C
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
The Heavy Photon Search (HPS), an experiment to search for a hidden sector photon in fixed target electroproduction, is preparing for installation at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator ...Facility (JLab) in the Fall of 2014. As the first stage of this project, the HPS Test Run apparatus was constructed and operated in 2012 to demonstrate the experiment׳s technical feasibility and to confirm that the trigger rates and occupancies are as expected. This paper describes the HPS Test Run apparatus and readout electronics and its performance. In this setting, a heavy photon can be identified as a narrow peak in the e+e− invariant mass spectrum above the trident background or as a narrow invariant mass peak with a decay vertex displaced from the production target, so charged particle tracking and vertexing are needed for its detection. In the HPS Test Run, charged particles are measured with a compact forward silicon microstrip tracker inside a dipole magnet. Electromagnetic showers are detected in a PbW04 crystal calorimeter situated behind the magnet, and are used to trigger the experiment and identify electrons and positrons. Both detectors are placed close to the beam line and split top-bottom. This arrangement provides sensitivity to low-mass heavy photons, allows clear passage of the unscattered beam, and avoids the spray of degraded electrons coming from the target. The discrimination between prompt and displaced e+e− pairs requires the first layer of silicon sensors be placed only 10cm downstream of the target. The expected signal is small, and the trident background huge, so the experiment requires very large statistics. Accordingly, the HPS Test Run utilizes high-rate readout and data acquisition electronics and a fast trigger to exploit the essentially 100% duty cycle of the CEBAF accelerator at JLab.
In the past two decades, deeply virtual Compton scattering of electrons has been successfully used to advance our knowledge of the partonic structure of the free proton and investigate correlations ...between the transverse position and the longitudinal momentum of quarks inside the nucleon. Meanwhile, the structure of bound nucleons in nuclei has been studied in inclusive deep-inelastic lepton scattering experiments off nuclear targets, showing a significant difference in longitudinal momentum distribution of quarks inside the bound nucleon, known as the EMC effect. In this Letter, we report the first beam spin asymmetry (BSA) measurement of exclusive deeply virtual Compton scattering off a proton bound in ^{4}He. The data used here were accumulated using a 6 GeV longitudinally polarized electron beam incident on a pressurized ^{4}He gaseous target placed within the CLAS spectrometer in Hall-B at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. The azimuthal angle (ϕ) dependence of the BSA was studied in a wide range of virtual photon and scattered proton kinematics. The Q^{2}, x_{B}, and t dependencies of the BSA on the bound proton are compared with those on the free proton. In the whole kinematical region of our measurements, the BSA on the bound proton is smaller by 20% to 40%, indicating possible medium modification of its partonic structure.
The treatment of cystic fibrosis (CF) patients chronically infected with
Burkholderia cepacia
complex (Bcc) bacteria requires extensive and aggressive antibiotics therapy, exposing these bacteria to ...prolonged antibiotics-selective pressure. In the present study, we have compared the susceptibility patterns to 13 antimicrobials of 94 Bcc isolates obtained from 15 Portuguese CF patients in the course of chronic infection during a five-year survey. These isolates were previously genotyped and represent 11 different strains of the species
B. cenocepacia
(subgroups A and B),
B. cepacia
,
B. multivorans
, and
B. stabilis
. The results are consistent with the notion that CF Bcc isolates are resistant to the most clinically relevant antimicrobials and suggest an uneven distribution of resistance rates among the different species, with
B. cenocepacia
subgroup A isolates being the most resistant. Phenotypic variants exhibiting differences in the antimicrobial susceptibility patterns were obtained from the sputum samples of clinically deteriorated CF patients during chronic lung infection. The isolation of resistant variants coincided with periods of pulmonary exacerbation and antibiotics therapy.
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