Parental stress and working situation during the COVID-19 shutdown - Effects on children's skill development.

Objective: This study examines whether parental emotional distress during the first pandemic-related school shutdown in 2020 in Germany affected the development of primary school students' mathematical skills and investigates changes in parents' working conditions as triggers of cascading stress processes.

Background: The Family Stress Model (FSM) explains the mechanisms that mediate between families' structural conditions and children's developmental outcomes. Foundational works for this approach focus on historic events that instigate rapid structural changes which, in turn, undermine families' economic situation.

Inequalities in Resources for Preschool-Age Children by Parental Education: Evidence from Six Advanced Industrialized Countries.

This paper provides new evidence on inequalities in resources for children age 3-4 by parental education using harmonized data from six advanced industrialized countries-United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Netherlands, and Japan-that represent different social welfare regime types. We analyze inequalities in two types of resources for young children-family income, and center-based child care-applying two alternative measures of parental education-highest parental education, and maternal education. We hypothesize that inequalities in resources by parental education will be less pronounced in countries where social policies are designed to be more equalizing.

Teacher judgements and gender achievement gaps in primary education in England, Germany, and the US.

We examined whether inaccurate teacher judgements of primary school student achievement correlate with students' gender and whether such bias contributes to gender achievement gaps in language and mathematics. Our study used ex-post harmonised longitudinal data from England, Germany, and the US. We observed domain-specific teacher judgement bias with a positive bias for girls in the language domain and for boys in mathematics.

Impact of Strain Engineering on Antiferroelectricity in NaNbO Thin Films.

Thin films of NaNbO were grown on various substrates to investigate the effect of epitaxial strain on their structural and electrical properties. Reciprocal space maps confirmed the presence of epitaxial strain from +0.8% to -1.

The role of energy balance related behaviors in socioeconomic inequalities in childhood body mass index: A comparative analysis of Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Socioeconomic inequalities in childhood Body Mass Index (BMI) are becoming increasingly more pronounced across the world. Although countries differ in the direction and strength of these inequalities, cross-national comparative research on this topic is rare. This paper draws on harmonized longitudinal cohort data from four wealthy countries-Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (US)-to 1) map cross-country differences in the magnitude of socioeconomic inequalities in childhood BMI, and 2) to examine cross-country differences in the role of three energy-balance-related behaviors-physical activity, screen time, and breakfast consumption-in explaining these inequalities.

Development of socio-economic gaps in children's language skills in Germany.

Gaps in language skills by socio-economic status (SES) are already evident before school entry, and these gaps may change over time. After discussing mechanisms of cumulative advantages ('Matthew effects') and compensatory effects as well as the relevance of cultural capital and child-related activities in families, this paper tests mechanisms behind changing SES gaps in language skills from age five to nine in Germany. Analysing data from the German National Educational Panel Study with growth curve models, we find widening SES gaps in children's vocabulary.

Toward 3D dose verification of an electronic brachytherapy source with a plastic scintillation detector.

Background: Electronic brachytherapy (eBT) is considered a safe treatment with good outcomes. However, eBT lacks standardized and independent dose verification, which could impede future use.

Purpose: To validate the 3D dose-to-water distribution of an electronic brachytherapy (eBT) source using a small-volume plastic scintillation detector (PSD).

GEC-ESTRO ACROP recommendations on calibration and traceability of LE-LDR photon-emitting brachytherapy sources at the hospital level.

Prostate brachytherapy treatment using permanent implantation of low-energy (LE) low-dose rate (LDR) sources is successfully and widely applied in Europe. In addition, seeds are used in other tumour sites, such as ophthalmic tumours, implanted temporarily. The calibration issues for LE-LDR photon emitting sources are specific and different from other sources used in brachytherapy.

How cohabitation, marriage, separation, and divorce influence BMI: A prospective panel study.

Objective: This study examines how changes in cohabitation or marital status affect Body Mass Index (BMI) over time in a large representative sample.

Method: Participants were 20,950 individuals (50% female; 19 to 100 years), representative of the German population, who provided 81,926 observations over 16 years. Face-to-face interviews were used to obtain demographic data, including cohabitation and marital status, height, body weight, and weight-relevant behaviors (exercise, healthy eating, and smoking).

Realisation of the absorbed dose to water for I-125 interstitial brachytherapy sources.

A large air-filled parallel-plate extrapolation chamber in a phantom of water-equivalent material is used as a primary standard measuring device for low-energy interstitial brachytherapy sources from which the unit of absorbed dose to water can be derived. The chamber is suitable for low-energy photons with energies up to 50 keV. The method to determine the absorbed dose to water was newly developed based on radiation transport theory.

Percutaneous mitral annuloplasty device leaves free access to cardiac veins for resynchronization therapy.

Objectives: To assess the feasibility to place a left ventricular lead into the coronary sinus following percutaneous mitral annuloplasty.

Background: Percutaneous coronary sinus-based mitral annuloplasty may reduce functional mitral regurgitation in chronic systolic heart failure. However, concerns have been raised whether the placement of an annular remodeling device in the coronary sinus might preclude subsequent lead placement for resynchronization therapy (CRT).

Decreased number of circulating progenitor cells in obesity: beneficial effects of weight reduction.

Aims: Cardiovascular risk factors are associated with decreased levels of circulating progenitor cells (CPC). The aim of this study was to determine whether the number of CPC is an independent correlate of body mass index (BMI) and whether weight loss leads to an increase in CPC.

Methods And Results: CD34 positive and KDR/CD34, CD133/CD34, and CD117/CD34 double positive cells were measured by fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACS) analysis in peripheral blood of 149 volunteers (52.

Mutants of protein kinase A that mimic the ATP-binding site of protein kinase B (AKT).

The mutation of well behaved enzymes in order to simulate less manageable cognates is the obvious approach to study specific features of the recalcitrant target. Accordingly, the prototypical protein kinase PKA serves as a model for many kinases, including the closely related PKB, an AGC family protein kinase now implicated as oncogenic in several cancers. Two residues that differ between the alpha isoforms of PKA and PKB at the adenine-binding site generate differing shapes of the binding surface and are likely to play a role in ligand selectivity.

Randomized comparison of mounted versus unmounted stents: the multicenter COMUS trial.

Background: Although the use of premounted stents on a delivery balloon has almost completely eliminated the initially used hand-crimping procedure, no data are available that prove the superiority of one or the other approach on a randomized basis. Therefore, this study was designed to examine whether the use of premounted stents is comparable with the hand-crimping procedure.

Methods: A total of 123 patients (64 treated with unmounted stents, 59 treated with premounted stents) were examined in a multicenter, randomized, prospective study.

Synthesis and optical limiting properties of axially bridged phthalocyanines: [(tBu4PcGa)2O] and [(tBu4PcIn)2O].

Highly soluble [(tBu(4)PcM)(2)O] phthalocyanine dimers (M=Ga(III) (3), In(III) (4)) were prepared by the reaction of [tBu(4)PcMCl] (M=Ga(III) (1), In(III) (2)) with excess of concentrated H(2)SO(4) at -20 degrees C. The Mbond;Obond;M linkages in 3 and 4 are not stable against concentrated H(2)SO(4) at room temperature, 6 n HCl at reflux, or during isolation under column chromatographic conditions (e.g.