Association Between Acquired Punctal Stenosis and Ocular Surface Disease: the Egg and the Chicken Story.

Purpose: This study explores the relationship between acquired punctal stenosis (PS) and ocular surface disease (OSD), assessing causal mechanisms and clinical impacts, utilizing a combination of a comprehensive literature review and a detailed analysis of a patient cohort from a tertiary care center.

Methods: Data from 213 PS patients at Sheba Medical Center were retrospectively analyzed, evaluating various OSD symptoms and treatment effectiveness through standardized clinical assessments and statistical tests.

Results: Predominantly older and female, many patients exhibited bilateral PS.

The Impact of a Positive Biofire FilmArray Gastrointestinal Panel Result on Clinical Management and Outcomes.

The gold standard diagnostic method for gastrointestinal infections is stool culture, which has limited sensitivity and long turnaround time. Infection diagnosis recently shifted to syndrome-based panel assays. This study employed the FilmArray Gastrointestinal Panel, which detects 22 pathogens simultaneously, to investigate gastrointestinal infection and pathogen distribution in 91 stool samples of patients hospitalized at the Tzafon Medical Center, Israel, during 2020, and to compare the clinical and demographic data of negative vs.

Readiness of Small Energy Markets and Electric Power Grids to Global Health Crises: Lessons From the COVID-19 Pandemic.

In this paper we explore how the COVID-19 pandemic, also known as Coronavirus pandemic, affected the operation of small electric grids, and what can this event teach us on the readiness of such grids in the face of future global health crises. We focus on three major effects: changing patterns of generation and consumption, frequency stability, and the joint impact of low consumption and high share of renewable energy sources. Specifically, we analyze changes in consumption in the Israeli, Estonian, and Finnish grids, and attempt to identify patterns of consumption changes that may be explained by the pandemic.