Increasing the COVID-19 immunization rate through allergy testing.

Background: Vaccination of the population is required to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Allergy testing could reduce anxiety towards COVID-19 vaccination and thereby may increase vaccination rate, however, its effectiveness remains unclear.

Methods: One hundred and thirty prospective real-life patients in need of but not daring to get vaccinated asked for allergy workup for COVID-19 vaccine hypersensitivity in 2021/2022.

When to Take a Gesture Seriously: On How We Use and Prioritize Communicative Cues.

When people talk, their speech is often accompanied by gestures. Although it is known that co-speech gestures can influence face-to-face communication, it is currently unclear to what extent they are actively used and under which premises they are prioritized to facilitate communication. We investigated these open questions in two experiments that varied how pointing gestures disambiguate the utterances of an interlocutor.

Inconsistent use of gesture space during abstract pointing impairs language comprehension.

Pointing toward concrete objects is a well-known and efficient communicative strategy. Much less is known about the communicative effectiveness of abstract pointing where the pointing gestures are directed to "empty space." McNeill's (2003) observations suggest that abstract pointing can be used to establish referents in gesture space, without the referents being physically present.

[The radiological image of pleural lipomas with special reference to computed tomography].

Diagnostic assessment of focal pleural mass requires CT examination, particularly in follow-up of anamnestic tumour conditions. Since 1976 well-delineated pleural masses that were suspicious for malignancy on chest films, were identified in 11 patients as lipomas, using CT. They showed semicircular, oval or polygonal shape, but no really "spheric" aspect on biplane chest films.

Influence of propranolol coadministration or cigarette smoking on the kinetics of desmethyldiazepam following intravenous clorazepate.

The influence of propranolol coadministration or of cigarette smoking on the kinetics of desmethyldiazepam following a single 20-mg intravenous dose of clorazepate dipotassium was evaluated in healthy volunteers. In Study One, intravenous clorazepate was given once in the control condition, and again during coadministration of propranolol, 80 mg twice daily. Compliance with the prescribed propranolol regimen was verified by measurement of serum propranolol concentrations (mean, 37 ng/ml).