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Individuals with severe mental illness (SMI) have been found to suffer a greater decline in psychological well-being compared to the general population in times of stress. The present study aimed to examine clinical and endocrine resilience factors of psychological well-being in SMI patients during the Covid-19 pandemic. Methods: After Covid-19 crisis outburst in Israel 112 participants, 69 outpatients, and 43 inpatients and day treatment patients were recruited. Outpatients signed an online informed consent and filled in questionnaires regarding their level of mental health symptoms (OQ-45), fear of Covid-19 (FCV), and psychological well-being (PWB). Inpatients answered the same questionnaires and in addition, went through a positive social interaction paradigm while providing three saliva samples to measure their s-IgA and oxytocin (OT) levels. Results: A strong negative correlation was found in the whole sample between reported mental health symptoms, fear of Covid-19, and well-being. Hierarchical regression did not find additional contribution of the fear of the pandemic in predicting well-being beyond the impact of symptomatology. For inpatients (N = 39) only, hierarchical regression found that oxytocin, but not s-IgA could explain 5% of the variance of well-being (R2 = 0.05) in individuals with SMI regardless of their mental health symptoms (R2 = 0.46) and their marital status (R2 = 0.21). Conclusions: OT is suggested as a possible independent biological resilience factor of well-being in times of major stress among SMI patients. It is still unknown whether OT is a mediator that contributes to well-being or a biological marker that indicates the degree of beneficial social interactions. • Psychiatric symptomatology significantly impacts well-being in severely ill patients during the Covid-19 pandemic. • Fear of Covid-19 was not related to psychological well-being beyond symptoms. • Oxytocin was related to psychological well-being beyond symptoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2010.11.007 Byline: Yoko Shibata (1)(2), Tom Shemesh (3), William A. Prinz (4), Alexander F. Palazzo (1)(5), Michael M. Kozlov (3), Tom A. Rapoport (1)(2) Abstract: The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) consists of the nuclear envelope and a peripheral network of tubules and membrane sheets. The tubules are shaped by the curvature-stabilizing proteins reticulons and DP1/Yop1p, but how the sheets are formed is unclear. Here, we identify several sheet-enriched membrane proteins in the mammalian ER, including proteins that translocate and modify newly synthesized polypeptides, as well as coiled-coil membrane proteins that are highly upregulated in cells with proliferated ER sheets, all of which are localized by membrane-bound polysomes. These results indicate that sheets and tubules correspond to rough and smooth ER, respectively. One of the coiled-coil proteins, Climp63, serves as a 'luminal ER spacer' and forms sheets when overexpressed. More universally, however, sheet formation appears to involve the reticulons and DP1/Yop1p, which localize to sheet edges and whose abundance determines the ratio of sheets to tubules. These proteins may generate sheets by stabilizing the high curvature of edges. Author Affiliation: (1) Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, 240 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA (2) Department of Cell Biology, Harvard Medical School, 240 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA (3) Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, 69978 Tel Aviv, Israel (4) Laboratory of Cell Biochemistry and Biology, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disorders, National Institute of Health, Bethesda, MD 02892, USA (5) Department of Biochemistry, University of Toronto, 1 King's College Circle, Toronto, ON M5S 1A8, Canada Article History: Received 19 May 2010; Revised 3 September 2010; Accepted 26 October 2010 Article Note: (miscellaneous) Published: November 24, 2010

Aim: To evaluate a novel deep-learning denoising method for ultra-low dose CT (ULDCT) in the assessment of coronary artery calcium score (CACS).Materials and Methods: Sixty adult patients who underwent two unenhanced chest CT examinations, a normal dose CT (NDCT) and an ULDCT, were enrolled prospectively between September 2017 to December 201. A special training set was created to learn the characteristics of the real noise affecting the ULDCT implementing a fully convolutional neural network with batch normalisation. Subsequently, the 60 ULDCTs of the evaluation set were denoised. Two blinded radiologists assessed the NDCT, ULDCT, and denoised-ULDCT (DULDCT), assigning a CACS and categorised each scan as having a score above or below 100 and presence of calcifications (score 0 versus >0). Statistical analysis was used to evaluate the agreement between the readers and differences in CACSs between each imaging method.Results: After excluding one patient, the cohort included 59 patients (median age 67 years, 58% men). The ULDCT median effective radiation dose (ERD) was 0.172 mSv, which was 2.8% of the NDCT median ERD. Denoising improved the signal-to-noise ratio by 27.7% (p<0.001). Interobserver agreement was almost perfect between readers (intraclass correlation coefficient >0.993). CACSs were lower for ULDCT and DULDCT as compared to the NDCT (p ≤ 0.001). In differentiating between the presence and absence of coronary artery calcifications, DULDCT showed greater accuracy (98-100%) and positive likelihood ratio (14.29->99) compared to ULDCT (92% and 2.78, respectively).Conclusion: DULCT significantly reduced the image noise and better identified patients with no coronary artery calcifications than native ULDCT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2005.04.006 Byline: Keren Barel-Cohen (a), Laurence S. Shore (b), Mordechai Shemesh (b), Andrea Wenzel (c), Josef Mueller (c), Noga Kronfeld-Schor (a) Abstract: Natural (estradiol, estrone, testosterone, estriol) and synthetic hormones (ethinylestradiol) are constantly excreted into the environment from human and animal sources but little is known of their transport. The purpose of this study was to determine how far along a 100km river course that hormones could be detected after contamination with sewage effluent or fishpond effluent. Fourteen sites in the Lower Jordan River drainage were sampled (two sites above the sewage effluent contamination, eight sites below the contamination and four tributaries) before and after the dry season of 2002 (Spring and Fall). Samples were tested for testosterone, estrogen (estrone and estradiol combined), estriol, ethinylestradiol, ammonia and fecal coli. It was found that the fecal coli count dropped exponentially (from 250,000 to 60/100ml.sup.3) and the ammonia dropped from 15 to less than 1mg/l over the initial 25km stretch. Over the same stretch, the hormone values declined by half from their maximum values for testosterone (3.3ng/l), estriol (8.8ng/l), ethinylestradiol (6.1ng/l), and estrogen (4.9ng/l). From 67 to 100km mark, testosterone (4.8ng/l) and estrogen (2.4ng/l) were still elevated while ethinylestradiol and estriol were [greater than or equal to]1.5ng/l. The high level of testosterone and estrogen between 67 and 100km marks was probably due to major discharge from fishponds between 23 and 27km marks. Levels of ethinylestradiol above 1ng/l, a level which can affect fish, was seen in 70% (12/16) of the samples tested. The data suggest that hormones in readily measured quantities can be transported considerable distances from the source of pollution. Author Affiliation: (a) Department of Zoology, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel (b) Department of Hormone Research, Kimron Veterinary Institute, P.O. Box 12, Bet Dagan 50250, Israel (c) Fraunhofer-Institut for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology (Fh IME), Auf dem Aberg 1, D-57392 Schmallenberg, Germany Article History: Received 3 May 2004; Revised 19 March 2005; Accepted 12 April 2005

Although aggression is associated with several psychiatric disorders, there is no effective treatment nor a rigorous definition for "pathological aggression". Mice make a valuable model for studying aggression. They have a dynamic social structure that depends on the habitat and includes reciprocal interactions between the mice's aggression levels, social dominance hierarchy (SDH), and resource allocation. Nevertheless, the classical behavioral tests for territorial aggression and SDH in mice are reductive and have limited ethological and translational relevance. Recent work has explored the use of semi-natural environments to simultaneously study dominance-related behaviors, resource allocation, and aggressive behavior. Semi-natural setups allow experimental control of the environment combined with manipulations of neural activity. We argue that these setups can help bridge the translational gap in aggression research toward discovering neuronal mechanisms underlying maladaptive aggression. • Rigorously defining and treating pathological aggression in humans is challenging. • Resource availability and hierarchy affect individual levels of aggression. • Standard tests for excessive aggression in mice ignore resource availability and hierarchy. • Semi-natural environmental setups facilitate maladaptive aggression research in an ethological context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To examine the emotions demonstrated by parents of children hospitalized in a pediatric Covid-19 ward. Although Covid-19 is mostly a mild disease in children, a small proportion develop severe disease requiring prolonged intensive care support. On October 1st, 2020, a unique ward for children with Covid-19 was established in a large hospital in Israel. Interviews were conducted with parents of children who had been hospitalized in a pediatric Covid-19 ward. A total of 22 parents of children aged 3 weeks to18 years were interviewed. Three themes emerged: Theme 1: Recognizing their child needed hospitalization in the Covid-19 ward, caused parents anxiety and fear of the unknown. Theme 2: Their child's hospitalization in the Covid-19 ward caused fear and worry at their child's condition, parental stress, shame, boredom, and acceptance. Theme 3: Parents initially felt emotional loneliness towards the healthcare staff in the Covid-19 ward, as well as loss of control, later replaced by feelings of confidence. Parents have diverse emotions in response to needing to accompany their children who are hospitalized and isolated in a closed ward due to Covid-19. Health care professionals are immensely important in providing support for parents and for their children suffering from Covid-19. A national plan should be established to address inpatient childcare during an epidemic. Nurses can encourage parents and family to be involved in the child's care and communicate effectively to reduce both the parents' and the child's uncertainty, shame, fear and stress. • The hospitalization of a child in a Covid-19 ward evokes fear, stress, shame, and boredom for parents. • Nurses promote family involvement in the child's care despite restricted visitations. • A multi-professional team is involved in dealing with parents' emotional distress during a pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As patients with severe mental illness are at increased risk for COVID-19 mortality, the issue of willingness to be vaccinated is of extreme importance. During February 2021 Shalvata Mental Health hospital provided Covid-19 vaccines to its patients. Fifty one patients suffering from severe mental illness, out of 196 patients hospitalized in closed, open or day wards during that period, signed the informed consent and were assessed for their clinical condition (OQ-45), fear of Covid-19 (FCV-19S) and approach to the vaccine (C19-VHS). All patients who were not vaccinated in February 2021 (baseline) were re-approached a month later to assess whether they had gotten vaccinated since. Patients who were not vaccinated at baseline had an oppositional approach to the vaccine, and did not significantly differ in their fear of Covid-19 levels or in levels of clinical severity (t(49) = 2.51, p = 0.02) from those who were vaccinated. From the 29 patients who were not vaccinated at baseline approach to the vaccine was a good predictor to getting vaccinated after one month (79% positive predictive value). The majority of patients suffering from a severe mental illness are willing to get vaccinated, and their decision of whether or not to get vaccinated is based on their viewpoint on the vaccine rather than being an outcome of their level of distress (OQ-45). It is important to allow vaccine accessibility to hospitalized patients, to consider their opinions and to provide useful information to lower vaccine hesitancy and improve vaccination rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this review was to determine the diagnostic accuracy of cone-beam computed tomographic (CBCT) imaging in detecting vertical root fractures (VRFs) in root-filled teeth compared with a reference standard (direct visualization). Electronic searches were performed in Medline, Scopus, Cochrane, and gray literature for English language articles until June 2020. Prospective and retrospective clinical studies using CBCT imaging to diagnose VRFs in root-filled teeth were included. Case reports and in vitro studies were excluded. The Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies 2 tool was used to assess the risk of bias and applicability concerns. Meta-analysis was performed using Stata 16.1 software (StataCorp, College Station, TX) via the MIDAS v.3.0 package and METANDI module. Publication bias was evaluated using Deeks' funnel plot analysis. Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluations (GRADE) was performed to evaluate the certainty of evidence. This systematic review was registered in the Open Science Framework (10.17605/OSF.IO/7JKE2). Eight articles were included in this systematic review and meta-analysis. Risk of bias assessment showed that 5 articles in the patient selection domain had low risk of bias with low applicability concern. In the index test and reference standard domains, 7 articles had moderate risk of bias with moderate applicability concern. Three articles had high RB in the flow and timing domain. There was no publication bias. CBCT imaging had a pooled sensitivity and specificity of 0.78 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.64–0.88) and 0.80 (95% CI, 0.63–0.91), respectively, and an accuracy of 0.86 (95% CI, 0.83–0.89). CBCT imaging also had pooled positive and negative likelihood ratios of 4 and 0.2, respectively. In GRADE analysis, the quality of evidence was low for sensitivity and moderate for specificity when CBCT imaging was used for the diagnosis of VRF. The overall quality assessment of the included articles showed that in the patient selection domain, the risk of bias was low, and it was moderate in the index test and reference standard domains. Evidence from this systematic review and meta-analysis indicates that CBCT imaging is still not a good tool for diagnosing VRFs in root-filled teeth compared with direct visualization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Siemens Centaur hs-cTnI assay provided more values above LOQ than the contemporary assay. • Using the hs-cTnI assay did not increase the incidence of elevated troponin above URLs. • There is proportional bias between the hs-cTnI and the contemporary assays. • Analytical comparisons between the two assays were consistent in two hospitals. This study aimed to compare the incidence of cardiac troponin I (cTnI) concentrations above the limit of quantification (LOQ) and the sex-specific 99th percentile upper reference limits (URLs) between the Ultra contemporary cTnI assay and the high-sensitivity (hs-cTnI) assay on Siemens Centaur in patients evaluated in the emergency department (ED) and inpatient at a U.S. urban academic hospital. A retrospective study was performed in an unselected patient cohort who presented to the hospital with symptoms suggestive of myocardial injury. All clinically ordered samples for cTnI assay (n = 1,056, LOQ 0.03 µg/L, URL 0.04 µg/L) were simultaneously tested on the hs-cTnI assay (LOQ 2.5 ng/L; URL 58 ng/L and 39 ng/L for male and female, respectively). The incidence of elevated cTnI above the 99th percentile URL in males measured by the hs-cTnI assay was significantly lower compared to the cTnI assay (31.4% vs. 38.7%, p = 0.016), whereas there was no difference in females (27.4% vs. 30.2%, p = 0.35) in all the patient samples. In ED patient samples (n = 718), the incidence of elevated cTnI above the sex-specific 99th percentile URL was not significantly different between the hs-cTnI and contemporary cTnI assays in either sex (male: hs-cTnI 16.6% vs. cTnI 21.5%, p = 0.13; female: hs-cTnI 19.6% vs. cTnI 21.1%, p = 0.66). The agreement between the two assays was 93.5% (kappa = 0.798). Results were confirmed in an independent patient cohort measured by the same instruments at another hospital. Our study suggests that implementation of the hs-cTnI assay would not lead to an increase in the proportion of elevated cTnI above the 99th percentile in the emergency department and other inpatient units. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]