Electron-rich anilines as cleavable linkers for peptides.

We report the development of a new electron-rich aniline (ERA)-based cleavable linker. Anilines can be incorporated into peptides during SPPS and are stable to most reaction conditions. ERA-containing peptides can be cleaved rapidly in the presence of oxidants, such as DDQ, CAN, and NaIO, in 30 min at room temperature.

Circadian-informed lighting improves vigilance, sleep, and subjective sleepiness during simulated night-shift work.

Study Objectives: Shiftwork is associated with cognitive impairment and reduced sleep time and quality, largely due to circadian misalignment. This study tested if circadian-informed lighting could improve cognitive performance and sleep during simulated night shifts versus dim control lighting.

Methods: Nineteen healthy participants (mean ± SD 29 ± 10 years, 12 males, 7 females) were recruited to a laboratory study consisting of two counterbalanced 8-day lighting conditions (order randomized) 1-month apart: (1) control lighting condition - dim, blue-depleted and (2) circadian-informed lighting condition - blue-enriched and blue-depleted where appropriate.

A circadian-informed lighting intervention accelerates circadian adjustment to a night work schedule in a submarine lighting environment.

Study Objective: Night work has detrimental impacts on sleep and performance, primarily due to misalignment between sleep-wake schedules and underlying circadian rhythms. This study tested whether circadian-informed lighting accelerated circadian phase delay, and thus adjustment to night work, compared to blue-depleted standard lighting under simulated submariner work conditions.

Methods: Nineteen healthy sleepers (12 males; mean ± SD aged 29 ± 10 years) participated in two separate 8-day visits approximately 1 month apart to receive, in random order, circadian-informed lighting (blue-enriched and dim, blue-depleted lighting at specific times) and standard lighting (dim, blue-depleted lighting).

From the Editors.

It will take years before we can understand and measure the full toll that the COVID-19 pandemic has taken on our health systems. Of the many reverberations from the pandemic, one of the most concerning implications is an increase in the rates of preventable harm. Four years of unprecedented demand on healthcare services combined with health human resource shortages and clinician burnout have pushed our systems to the brink - and are impacting our capacity to improve or even maintain standards of care.

Tripolar concentric ring electrodes for capturing localised electroencephalography signals during sleep.

By design, tripolar concentric ring electrodes (TCRE) provide more focal brain activity signals than conventional electroencephalography (EEG) electrodes placed further apart. This study compared spectral characteristics and rates of data loss to noisy epochs with TCRE versus conventional EEG signals recorded during sleep. A total of 20 healthy sleepers (12 females; mean [standard deviation] age 27.

Estimating vigilance from the pre-work shift sleep using an under-mattress sleep sensor.

Predicting vigilance impairment in high-risk shift work occupations is critical to help to reduce workplace errors and accidents. Current methods rely on multi-night, often manually entered, sleep data. This study developed a machine learning model for predicting vigilance errors based on a single prior sleep period, derived from an under-mattress sensor.

From the Editors.

As we consider the current pressures on healthcare, the options for where to focus our policy and leadership efforts are numerous and, at times, overwhelming. From health human resources capacity to access to mental health and preventative care to intermittent closures of emergency departments - the outlook is alarming. To help make sense of the situation, our editorial team carefully considers a few areas to focus on in each edition.

Inhibition skills in children with developmental coordination disorder.

Background: Inhibition (Response Inhibition - RI and Interference Control - IC) have been inconsistently examined in Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) with response modalities often not considered.

Aims: To examine RI and IC in children with DCD.

Method: Twenty-five children 6-10 years with DCD, plus 25 matched typically developing peers completed motor and verbal RI and IC tasks.

A method of calculating surface energies for asymmetric slab models.

Many essential chemical processes, such as adsorption and catalysis, take place at the surface of a solid material. Hence, accurately determining the energy of a solid surface provides crucial information about the material's potential utility for such processes. The standard method of calculating surface energy yields good approximations for solids that, upon cleavage, expose identical surface terminations (symmetric slabs) but suffers critical shortcomings when applied to the multitude of materials that expose atomically different terminations (asymmetric slabs) due to the inaccurate assumption that the two terminations exhibit exactly the same energy.

Shadows and Light: An Interview with Heather Patterson.

The editors of Healthcare Quarterly (HQ) recently had the opportunity to speak with Heather Patterson - emergency physician, photographer and author of the recently released book Shadows and Light (Patterson 2022). Through the photographs she took at Calgary-area hospitals during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Patterson created a poignant record of how the pandemic affected hospital staff, patients and their families. The book has struck a chord with many Canadians as it offers both an honest appraisal of the dreadful toll of the pandemic while also demonstrating the grace and compassion of healthcare workers.

From the Editors.

The recent winter months were particularly brutal for the healthcare system and its patients as we grappled with an onslaught of infectious diseases, healthcare backlogs and critical shortages of health human resources. We subsequently watched as Canada's federal and provincial leaders sought agreement on additional investments for several of our most precarious sectors, including long-term care, primary care and mental healthcare. Spring 2023 offers some optimism in that we will have new resources to make much-needed improvements to our depleted health sectors and services.

Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic for Long-Term Care: Where Do We Go Next?

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, I would often hear colleagues who are intimately familiar with our health and social care system remark that they would never allow themselves or those closest to them to end up in long-term care. Sadly, the conversation often progressed to an acknowledgment that more desirable alternatives to long-term care for the most part lie outside our publicly supported care system and are only accessible to those with the means. And then we had the pandemic.

From the Editors.

Although we do not yet know how or when the story of COVID-19 ends, Canadians are welcoming the summer of 2022 with the anticipation of the first prolonged period of near normalcy in two-and-a-half years. This sense of renewal coincides with the start of our roles as the new co-editors-in-chief of Healthcare Quarterly (HQ). Building on HQ's 25 years of excellence in sharing leading practices in health services delivery and policy, we are looking forward to taking the journal in new directions.

Eye Gaze in Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Review of Neural Evidence for the Eye Avoidance Hypothesis.

Reduced eye contact early in life may play a role in the developmental pathways that culminate in a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. However, there are contradictory theories regarding the neural mechanisms involved. According to the amygdala theory of autism, reduced eye contact results from a hypoactive amygdala that fails to flag eyes as salient.

Relationships between motor skills and executive functions in developmental coordination disorder (DCD): A systematic review.

Background: Individuals with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) experience motor skill and executive function (EF) difficulties that challenge their daily activities.

Aim/objective: This systematic review aims to provide an in-depth analysis of the relationships between motor skills and EFs in studies among individuals with DCD.

Material And Methods: We conducted a systematic search of eight electronic databases for articles (published 1994-2021) reporting on quantitative studies that estimated relationships between motor skills and EFs when assessing children, adolescents and adults with DCD.

Leadership Perspective: Partnering with Patients to Co-Design Healthcare Systems.

The ability to partner with patients to design healthcare systems is an increasingly critical skill for healthcare leaders. Guest editors Anne Wojtak and Neil Stuart spoke with Vincent Dumez, co-director of the Montreal-based Centre of Excellence on Partnership with Patients and the Public, to gain an understanding of what true patient partnership looks like and how healthcare system design can be transformed.

Leadership Perspective: Addressing Canada's Opioid Crisis - Reducing the Harm of Leadership.

While the COVID-19 pandemic has been the major focus for healthcare leaders since early 2020, the opioid crisis has been growing in the background. Confronting this emerging problem will require new thinking. Guest editors Anne Wojtak and Neil Stuart spoke with Scott Elliott, executive director, and Patrick McDougall, director of Knowledge Translation and Evaluation, at the Dr.

Resetting the Future of Healthcare Leadership.

There is no doubt that the events of the past two years will leave an indelible mark on human history. The tragic loss of so many lives during the COVID-19 pandemic, the long-term health and psychological impacts for many more and the economic and societal changes will reverberate for years to come. While the pandemic is not yet over, we are starting to appreciate how different our new future looks and feels.

Consecutive Nights of Moderate Sleep Loss Does Not Affect Mood in Healthy Young Males.

Sleep loss causes mood disturbance in non-clinical populations under severe conditions, i.e., two days/nights of sleep deprivation or a week of sleep restriction with 4-5 h in bed each night.

An imaging refractometer for density fluctuation measurements in high energy density plasmas.

We report on a recently developed laser-probing diagnostic, which allows direct measurements of ray-deflection angles in one axis while retaining imaging capabilities in the other axis. This allows us to measure the spectrum of angular deflections from a laser beam, which passes through a turbulent high-energy-density plasma. This spectrum contains information about the density fluctuations within the plasma, which deflect the probing laser over a range of angles.