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A major strategy to prevent the spread of COVID-19 is the limiting of in-person contacts. However, limiting contacts is impractical or impossible for the many disabled people who do not live in care facilities but still require caregivers to assist them with activities of daily living. We seek to determine which interventions can best prevent infections of disabled people and their caregivers. To accomplish this, we simulate COVID-19 transmission with a compartmental model that includes susceptible, exposed, asymptomatic, symptomatically ill, hospitalized, and removed/recovered individuals. The networks on which we simulate disease spread incorporate heterogeneity in the risk levels of different types of interactions, time-dependent lockdown and reopening measures, and interaction distributions for four different groups (caregivers, disabled people, essential workers, and the general population). Of these groups, we find that the probability of becoming infected is largest for caregivers and second largest for disabled people. Consistent with this finding, our analysis of network structure illustrates that caregivers have the largest modal eigenvector centrality of the four groups. We find that two interventions-contact-limiting by all groups and mask-wearing by disabled people and caregivers-most reduce the number of infections in disabled and caregiver populations. We also test which group of people spreads COVID-19 most readily by seeding infections in a subset of each group and comparing the total number of infections as the disease spreads. We find that caregivers are the most potent spreaders of COVID-19, particularly to other caregivers and to disabled people. We test where to use limited infection-blocking vaccine doses most effectively and find that (1) vaccinating caregivers better protects disabled people from infection than vaccinating the general population or essential workers and that (2) vaccinating caregivers protects disabled people from infection about as effectively as vaccinating disabled people themselves. Our results highlight the potential effectiveness of mask-wearing, contact-limiting throughout society, and strategic vaccination for limiting the exposure of disabled people and their caregivers to COVID-19., Competing Interests: We declare the following competing interests: HS provides care, JZ and ST receive care, and ST reports on the COVID-19 pandemic as a journalist.

Macular edema (ME) is the most frequent vision threatening consequence after retinal vein occlusion (RVO). In this study, we evaluate the effect of dexamethasone intravitreal implants (DII, Ozurdex) in a real-life cohort of 99 patients with ME due to RVO. All patients who received DII for ME following RVO between 2011 and 2016 at the University Eye Hospital Freiburg, Germany and who had fully accessible electronic medical records were eligible for this study. Most of the patients included in this study were not treatment-naïve: 61 eyes had received prior anti-VEGF drugs, 6 eyes had received intravitreal corticosteroids (triamcinolone) and 15 had been treated with both; 17 eyes were treatment-naïve. Mean follow-up was 312 ± 310 days. Mean visual acuity (VA) was maintained throughout the observation period (mean VA at baseline: 66.7 ± 23.5 letters; at last observation 64.9 ± 28.3). Central retinal thickness (CRT) decreased from 526 ± 179 µm at baseline to 431 ± 199 µm. Mean intraocular pressure (IOP) increased from 14.4 ± 3.1 mmHg at baseline to 17.1 ± 6.3 mmHg. Cataract surgery was performed in 22% of phakic eyes. DII was used as second-line treatment in the majority of cases in this cohort. The fact that mean VA remained unchanged while mean CRT decreased illustrates that morphologic improvement does not always translate into functional gain. Mean IOP was maintained within normal limits and cataract formation was as expected in this age group.

Objective: A comparison between automated and manual measurements of a foveal avascular zone in optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) in patients with diabetic retinopathy (DR)., Material and Methods: Consecutive patients with non-proliferative DR were included in this study. All patients received an OCTA, with a 3 × 3 mm scan of the macular region taken with the Zeiss OCT CIRRUS 5000 with the AngioPlex module. The size of the foveal avascular zone (FAZ) was determined both manually and with the help of the automated measurement metrics. Next, the measurements obtained using manual and automated methods were compared. In addition, the circularity index determined in metrics was examined for correlations with the size and area of the FAZ., Results: Thirty-four eyes from 28 patients with non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy with a mean age of 63 years were included. The mean size of the foveal avascular zone was 0.34 ± 0.12 mm 2 (0.08 - 0.65 mm 2 ) for manual evaluation and 0.23 ± 0.11 mm 2 (range 0.03 - 0.49 mm 2 ) in metrics. The circularity index in metrics averaged 0.58 and showed a statistically significant correlation with the size of the manually measured FAZ., Conclusion: There was a comparable result for the size of the FAZ in both measurement methods. Automated measurements with metrics can reliably represent changes in the FAZ for most patients, based on the calculated area, as well as on the circumference and the circularity index., Competing Interests: Die Autoren geben an, dass kein Interessenkonflikt besteht., (Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.)

Objective: Comparison of retinal neovascularizations of the disc (NVD) and elsewhere (NVE) in optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) and fluorescein angiography (FA) in patients with proliferative diabetic retinopathy., Materials and Methods: 15 consecutive patients were included in this study. All patients received an OCTA with a 3 × 3 mm scan of the region of interest with the ZEISS OCT Cirrus 5000 with the AngioPlex module. The size of the neovascularization (NV) was determined manually in OCTA and FA and compared between the two methods., Results: 20 eyes of 15 patients with proliferative diabetic retinopathy with an average age of 57 years were included. The mean size of NVDs was 3.44 mm 2 in OCTA and 3.75 mm 2 in FA, the mean size of NVDs was 1.06 mm 2 in OCTA and 1.54 mm 2 in FA. Taking into account a generally larger area measured in the FA, the two methods showed good overall agreement., Conclusion: There was a good agreement for the size of the NVs in both methods. OCTA can be used as a simple and non-invasive method to visualize retinal neovascularizations., Competing Interests: Die Autoren geben an, dass kein Interessenkonflikt besteht., (Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.)

Being a victim of bullying is linked to various social, emotional and behavioral problems potentially leading to a reduced quality of life. Furthermore, victims of bullying may cause extensive costs for society, for example by an above-average need for healthcare services. The present study was designed to quantify the costs and the loss of quality of life attributable to bullying by comparing victims with a control group of non-bullied students. A cross-sectional sample of 1293 adolescents (mean age 14.07, SD = 1.36) and their parents reported on bullying victimization, quality of life (adolescents' self-report), and annual direct (medical and non-medical) as well as indirect costs (parents' self-report) from a societal perspective (all expressed in €, year 2014 and 2015). For frequent (20.6% of our sample; costs: €8461.80 p.a.) but not occasional (13.3%; costs: €2850.06) bullying, victimization was associated with significantly higher costs compared to non-bullied adolescents (costs: €3138.00; annual difference between frequently bullied students and controls: €5323.01 p.a.; p = 0.008). Cost drivers included increased direct medical costs, but mostly indirect costs caused by productivity losses of the parents. Self-reported quality of life of frequent victims was considerably reduced (T = - 10.96; p < 0.001); also occasional bullying showed significantly reduced values in global quality of life (T = - 5.73; p < 0.001). The present findings demonstrate that frequent bullying is associated with substantial cost to society and reduced quality of life of victims. This observation underscores the need for effective school-based bullying prevention and suggests a high potential of effective programs to be cost effective as well.

Parental Monitoring and its Relation to Behaviour Problems and Risk Behaviour in an Adolescent School Sample Numerous research studies emphasize parental monitoring as a protective factor for adolescent problem behaviour. The purpose of the study presented was to use Stattin and Kerr's (2000) monitoring subscales for the first time in a German-speaking area and to explore the relations to behaviour problems in an adolescent school sample. The two active monitoring strategies "parental control" and "parental solicitation" as well as "parental knowledge" and "child disclosure" relating to behaviour problems and risk behaviour were examined. A sample of 494 pupils, grades 5, 7 and 9, of German secondary schools and their parents answered questions on "parental knowledge", "control", "solicitation" and "child disclosure". Adolescents also answered the German version of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and items about risk behaviour like frequency of violence, delinquency, substance abuse, self-injuring behaviour and school absenteeism. Behaviour problems in terms of the SDQ could be predicted sufficiently by "parental knowledge", but for the prediction of risk behaviour, the active parental monitoring strategies were of importance, too. More "parental knowledge", more "control" and less "solicitation" could predict less risk behaviour. Results confirm "parental knowledge" as a general protective factor for problem behaviour. However, they show the importance of "parental control" for adolescent risk behaviour.

We present what is to our knowledge the first use of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) as light sources for long-path differential optical absorption spectroscopy (LP-DOAS) measurements of trace gases in the open atmosphere. Modern LEDs represent a potentially advantageous alternative to thermal light sources, in particular to xenon arc lamps, which are the most common active DOAS light sources. The radiative properties of a variety of LEDs were characterized, and parameters such as spectral shape, spectral range, spectral stability, and ways in which they can be influenced by environmental factors were analyzed. The spectra of several LEDs were found to contain Fabry-Perot etalon-induced spectral structures that interfered with the DOAS evaluation, in particular when a constant temperature was not maintained. It was shown that LEDs can be used successfully as light sources in active DOAS experiments that measure NO2 and NO3 near 450 and 630 nm, respectively. Average detection limits of 0.3 parts in 10(9) and 16 parts in 10(12) respectively, were obtained by use of a 6 km light path in the open atmosphere.