Comparing the Prognostic Value of Lactate to the Neutrophil to Lymphocyte Ratio Among Sepsis Patients: A Prospective Cohort Study.

Background: Lactate has long been recognized as a key prognostic biomarker in sepsis. Similarly, the prognostic role of the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) has been investigated in various conditions, including sepsis. Previous studies have explored the optimal NLR cutoff to differentiate sepsis survivors from nonsurvivors, predict bacteremia, diagnose sepsis, and assess mortality.

International perspective on social cognition in schizophrenia: current stage and the next steps.

In the last decades, research from cognitive science, clinical psychology, psychiatry, and social neuroscience has provided mounting evidence that several social cognitive abilities are impaired in people with schizophrenia and contribute to functional difficulties and poor clinical outcomes. Social dysfunction is a hallmark of the illness, and yet, social cognition is seldom assessed in clinical practice or targeted for treatment. In this article, 17 international experts, from three different continents and six countries with expertise in social cognition and social neuroscience in schizophrenia, convened several meetings to provide clinicians with a summary of the most recent international research on social cognition evaluation and treatment in schizophrenia, and to lay out primary recommendations and procedures that can be integrated into their practice.

Social functioning and frontal alpha asymmetry in schizophrenia.

Background: Schizophrenia (SZ) is a psychiatric disorder that often involves reduced social functioning. Frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA) is a neurophysiological marker extracted from electroencephalogram (EEG) data that is likely related to motivational and emotional tendencies, such as reduced motivation across various psychiatric disorders, including SZ. Therefore, it may offer a neurophysiological marker for social functioning.

Surgical insights into meningiomas en plaque: A rare case of frontal tumor resection and its clinical implications.

Introduction: Meningiomas en Plaque (MEP) represents a rare subtype, typically affecting females and seen in the fifth decade of life, with proptosis as a common presenting symptom, posing both diagnostic and surgical challenges.

Case Presentation: A 55-year-old right-handed male presented with right hemiplegia, headache, vomiting, and frequent seizures. Neurological examination showed reduced visual acuity and right-sided exophthalmos.

Empathic disequilibrium in schizophrenia: An individual participant data meta-analysis.

Schizophrenia involves substantial social difficulties, yet their nature remains unclear. Although empathy has been considered a promising social cognition construct, inconsistent findings have undermined its usefulness as a stable index for schizophrenia. This may be because previous studies overlooked the interdependency between the emotional and cognitive components of empathy.

Bypassing Emergency Service: Decoding the Drivers of Self-Referral During Acute Myocardial Infarction on Rural Areas in Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany.

the timely and effective management of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is crucial to improve patient outcomes. 'Self-Referral' is defined as instances either where patients arrive at the hospital by their own means or are transported by someone else, rather than through professional emergency medical services. This approach can lead to treatment delays and potentially worsen outcomes.

Categorical and Dimensional Approaches for Psychiatric Classification and Treatment Targeting: Considerations from Psychosis Biotypes.

Categorical diagnosis, a pillar of the medical model, has not worked well in psychiatry where most diagnoses are still exclusively symptom based. Uncertainty continues about whether categories or dimensions work better for the assessment and treatment of idiopathic psychoses. The Bipolar Schizophrenia Network for Intermediate Phenotypes (B-SNIP) examined multiple cognitive and electrophysiological biomarkers across a large transdiagnostic psychosis data set.

Correlational Insights into Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in Lebanon.

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), a prevalent childhood neurodevelopmental disorder with complex etiology involving genetic and environmental factors, causes impairments across various life domains and substantial social and economic burden. Identifying correlates to prevent its onset and decrease its incidence is crucial. To our knowledge, our study represents the first case-control investigation of Lebanese ADHD patients to explore potential correlations between familial, maternal, and child health variables and ADHD to enhance understanding of its etiology and aid in prevention efforts.

Population dynamics in a time-varying environment with fat-tailed correlations.

Temporal environmental noise (EN) is a prevalent natural phenomenon that controls population and community dynamics, shaping the destiny of biological species and genetic types. Conventional theoretical models often depict EN as a Markovian process with an exponential distribution of correlation times, resulting in two distinct qualitative dynamical categories: quenched (long environmental timescales) and annealed (short environmental timescales). However, numerous empirical studies demonstrate a fat-tailed decay of correlation times.

Disentangling negative and positive symptoms in schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorder.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and schizophrenia (SZ) share traits, especially in social skills and negative symptoms, and to a lesser degree positive symptoms. Differential diagnosis can be challenging and discerning expressive and experiential negative symptoms may provide knowledge with potential diagnostic and functional relevance that can guide treatment. Two exploratory factor analyses (EFA) were conducted to reveal the underlying dimensions of negative and positive symptoms using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), the Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms & Negative Symptoms (SAPS/SANS) and the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule-Generic (ADOS-G).

Renewing Interest in Zeolites as Adsorbents for Capture of Cationic Dyes from Aqueous and Ethanolic Solutions: A Simulation-Based Insight into the Efficiency of Dye Adsorption in View of Wastewater Treatment and Valorization of Post-Sorption Materials.

The impact of solvents on the efficiency of cationic dye adsorption from a solution onto protonated Faujasite-type zeolite (FAU-Y) was investigated in the prospect of supporting potential applications in wastewater treatment or in the preparation of building blocks for optical devices. The adsorption isotherms were experimentally determined for methylene blue (MB) and auramine O (AO) from single-component solutions in water and in ethanol. The limiting dye uptake (saturation capacity) was evaluated for each adsorption system, and it decreased in the order of MB-water > AO-water > AO-ethanol > MB-ethanol.

Impact of Legal Guardian Absence on Research Enrollment in the PICU.

Objectives: To identify the frequency of which a legal guardian is at the bedside of children admitted to the PICU that are eligible for research studies.

Design: A prospective, observational study.

Setting: Three tertiary Canadian PICUs.

New optimization strategies for SWMM modeling of stormwater quality applications in urban area.

Build-up/wash-off models were originally developed for small-scale laboratory facilities with uniform properties. The effective translation of these models to catchment scale necessitates the meticulous calibration of model parameters. The present study combines the Mat-SWMM tool with a genetic algorithm (GA) to improve the calibration of build-up and wash-off parameters.

Comparison between Invasive Intervention and Conservative Treatment in Patients with In-Hospital Myocardial Infarctions: Results from the Regional Myocardial Infarction Registry of Saxony-Anhalt (RHESA) Study.

: In-hospital myocardial infarctions (AMIs) are less often treated with invasive intervention, compared to out-of-hospital AMIs. We aimed to identify the determinants of invasive intervention in patients with in-hospital AMIs and assess its association with mortality, compared to conservative treatment. : This was a cross-sectional study of in-hospital AMIs in The Regional Myocardial Infarction Registry of Saxony-Anhalt.

Adaptive quality of service for packet loss reduction using OpenFlow meters.

Quality of Service (QoS) is a mechanism used in computer networks to prioritize, classify, and treat packets differently based on certain criteria. This helps the switching devices to schedule and reorder packets if there is congestion in the network. Edge routers experience high traffic congestion as a result of traffic aggregation from the internal network devices.

Evaluating Study Approach of Dental Students in Palestine using a Study Process Questionnaire: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Background: Learning approach strategies are an important factor to obtain knowledge in any professional course. Surface approach learning and deep approach learning are two main types of learning strategies.

Aim: The aim of present study was to evaluate the study approach strategies of dental students in Palestine.

Radiographic Diagnostic Choices of Palestinian Dentists for Implant Therapy.

Aim: To report the radiographic preferences during dental implant therapy in Palestine.

Materials And Methods: Fourteen multiple-choice questions were delivered in electronic and hardcopy formats questionnaires during the Sixth International Implantology Conference (Palestine). The questions investigated the radiographic techniques that are mostly used based on various clinical scenarios and treatment phases.

Etrolizumab as an induction and maintenance therapy for ulcerative colitis: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.

Background And Aim: Etrolizumab is a gut-targeted anti-β7 integrin monoclonal antibody. However, the evidence of etrolizumab efficacy and safety in ulcerative colitis remains inconclusive. Therefore, we aim to evaluate the safety and efficacy of etrolizumab as an induction and maintenance therapy for active moderate to severe ulcerative colitis.

Association of Diabetes Mellitus With Increased Mortality in Carbapenem-Resistant Enterobacterales Infections.

Introduction Carbapenem-resistant (CRE) infections have high mortality. We aimed to examine the diabetes mellitus (DM) association with CRE mortality. Methodology Our study is a retrospective cohort study including patients who were admitted to the medical wards in the main district hospital (New Jahra Hospital, Kuwait) between January 1, 2022, and January 1, 2023, and diagnosed with CRE infections during hospitalization.

Estimating emergency department crowding with stochastic population models.

Environments such as shopping malls, airports, or hospital emergency-departments often experience crowding, with many people simultaneously requesting service. Crowding highly fluctuates, with sudden overcrowding "spikes". Past research has either focused on average behavior, used context-specific models with a large number of parameters, or machine-learning models that are hard to interpret.

Subscales of alexithymia show unique pathways through reappraisal and suppression to anxiety, depression and stress.

The goal of this work was to explore associations of constituent factors of alexithymia on mental health and potential mediating effects of emotion regulation strategies, specifically suppression and reappraisal. Data were collected through the crowd-sourcing platform Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTURK). Three hundred seventy-seven individuals completed questionnaires related to distress (Depression Anxiety Stress Scales [DASS]), emotion regulation (Emotion Regulation Questionnaire [ERQ]) and Alexithymia (Bermond-Vorst Alexithymia Questionnaire [BVAQ]).

Trust in pharmaceuticals and vaccine hesitancy: exploring factors influencing COVID-19 immunization among Lebanese children aged 1 to 11 years.

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic is a serious threat to everyone's health. Numerous studies have demonstrated that vaccines are very effective in preventing COVID-19-related severe illness, hospitalization, and death. Children's vaccination exerts its protecting effect by preventing the spread of the virus.

The impact of vitamin D, vitamin C, and zinc supplements on immune status among Jordanian adults during COVID-19: cross-sectional study findings.

Background And Aims: Nutritional status is essential for the maintenance of the immune system, with malnutrition suppressing immunity. The aims of the current study were to assess the immune status of a group of Jordanian adults and to evaluate the association between vitamin C, vitamin D, and zinc consumption and the Immune Status during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: A total of 615 adults Jordanian participants were enrolled in this study, an online- based cross sectional survey was used as a tool for this study.