The COVID-19 crisis and policy responses by continental European welfare states.

Social protection in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands share Bismarckian roots. Over time, these welfare states were however in constant flux and incorporated to a greater or lesser extend elements of both the Anglo-Saxon and Nordic models. While the Netherlands has from the beginning deviated from the Bismarckian model, in recent years this welfare state has undergone important reforms that have made it increasingly evolve into a "Bismarck Beveridge" model.

Patient-relevant health outcomes for hemophilia care: Development of an international standard outcomes set.

Background: Patient-relevant health outcomes for persons with hemophilia should be identified and prioritized to optimize and individualize care for persons with hemophilia. Therefore, an international group of persons with hemophilia and multidisciplinary health care providers set out to identify a globally applicable standard set of health outcomes relevant to all individuals with hemophilia.

Methods: A systematic literature search was performed to identify possible health outcomes and risk adjustment variables.

Effectiveness of behavioral interventions and behavior change techniques for reducing soft drink intake in disadvantaged adolescents: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Reducing sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) intake is an important dietary target, especially among socioeconomically disadvantaged ethnic minority adolescents. This review and meta-analysis evaluated the effectiveness of behavioural interventions aiming to reduce SSB intake in socioeconomically disadvantaged ethnic minority adolescents and examined which behaviour change techniques (BCTs) were most effective. A systematic search was conducted using the PRISMA criteria.

Playful Work Design: Introduction of a New Concept.

This article introduces the concept of playful work design-the process through which employees proactively create conditions within work activities that foster enjoyment and challenge without changing the design of the job itself. First, we review play theory and the motives people may have to play during work. In addition, we use the literature on proactive work behavior to argue that individuals can take personal initiative to increase person-job fit.

Debt and development in historical perspective: The external constraints of late industrialisation revisited through South Korea and Brazil.

Current debates about the role of external finance in development mostly overlook the insights from early development economics that late industrialisation generates a structural tendency to run trade deficits, thereby exacerbating rather than relieving external foreign exchange constraints. The developmental role of external finance is therefore based on its strategic marginal contribution to relieve such constraints. External debt in particular also allows countries to pursue industrial strategies without reliance on foreign direct investment.

Ripple Effects of Surface Acting: A Diary Study among Dual-Earner Couples.

This study among 80 dual-earner couples examines the ripple effects of emotional labour - on a daily basis. Specifically, we propose that employees who engage in surface acting at work drain their energetic resources, and undermine their own relationship satisfaction. Drawing upon conservation of resources (COR) theory, we predicted that work-related exhaustion would mediate the relationship between surface acting at work and at home.

Barriers and carriers: a multicenter survey of nurses' barriers and facilitators to monitoring of nurse-sensitive outcomes in intensive care units.

Aim: To identify nurses' barriers and facilitators to monitoring of nurse-sensitive outcomes in intensive care units (ICUs), and to explore influential nurse characteristics and work environment factors.

Design: A cross-sectional survey in three Dutch ICUs between October 2013 - June 2014.

Methods: A questionnaire with questions regarding facilitators and three types of barriers: knowledge, attitude and behaviour.

Beyond main effects of gene-sets: harsh parenting moderates the association between a dopamine gene-set and child externalizing behavior.

Background: In a longitudinal cohort study, we investigated the interplay of harsh parenting and genetic variation across a set of functionally related dopamine genes, in association with children's externalizing behavior. This is one of the first studies to employ gene-based and gene-set approaches in tests of Gene by Environment (G × E) effects on complex behavior. This approach can offer an important alternative or complement to candidate gene and genome-wide environmental interaction (GWEI) studies in the search for genetic variation underlying individual differences in behavior.

Long Term and Spillover Effects of Health Shocks on Employment and Income.

We use matching combined with difference-in-differences to identify the causal effects of sudden illness, represented by acute hospitalizations, on employment and income up to six years after the health shock using linked Dutch hospital and tax register data. An acute hospital admission lowers the employment probability by seven percentage points and results in a five percent loss of personal income two years after the shock. There is no subsequent recovery in either employment or income.

Leading people positively: cross-cultural validation of the Servant Leadership Survey (SLS).

Servant Leadership emphasizes employee's development and growth within a context of moral and social concern. Nowadays, this management change towards workers´ wellbeing is highlighted as an important issue. The aims of this paper are to adapt to Spanish speakers the Servant Leadership Survey (SLS) by van Dierendonck and Nuijten (2011), and to analyze its factorial validity through confirmatory factor analysis and measurement invariance in three countries.

Slipping Anchor? Testing the Vignettes Approach to Identification and Correction of Reporting Heterogeneity.

We propose tests of the two assumptions under which anchoring vignettes identify heterogeneity in reporting of categorical evaluations. Systematic variation in the perceived difference between any two vignette states is sufficient to reject vignette equivalence. Response consistency - the respondent uses the same response scale to evaluate the vignette and herself - is testable given sufficiently comprehensive objective indicators that independently identify response scales.

Long Run Returns to Education: Does Schooling Lead to an Extended Old Age?

While there is no doubt that health is strongly correlated with education, whether schooling exerts a causal impact on health is not firmly established. We exploit a Dutch compulsory schooling law to estimate the causal effect of education on mortality. The reform provides a powerful instrument, significantly raising years of schooling, which, in turn, has a significant and robust negative effect on mortality.

Correction for erythroid cell contamination in microassay for immunophenotyping of neonatal lymphocytes.

Immunophenotyping of blood lymphocyte subpopulations in neonates and young infants is hampered by the limited amount of blood that can be collected. Contamination of the flow cytometric "lympho-gate" by normoblasts and analysed erythrocytes, and therefore the underestimation of the relative frequencies of lymphocyte subpopulations, interferes with the precise calculation of absolute counts. A microassay was developed by adapting the lysed whole blood technique.

Role of cytokines in myocardial ischemia and reperfusion.

Mediators of myocardial inflammation, predominantly cytokines, have for many years been implicated in the healing processes after infarction. In recent years, however, more attention has been paid to the possibility that the inflammation may result in deleterious complications for myocardial infarction. The proinflammatory cytokines may mediate myocardial dysfunction associated with myocardial infarction, severe congestive heart failure, and sepsis.

Effects of fluticasone propionate on arachidonic acid metabolites in BAL-fluid and methacholine dose-response curves in non-smoking atopic asthmatics.

Hyperresponsiveness of the airways to nonspecific stimuli is a characteristic feature of asthma. Airway responsiveness is usually characterized in terms of the position and shape of the dose-response curve to methacholine (MDR). In the study we have investigated the influence of fluticasone propionate (FP), a topically active glucocorticoid, on arachidonic acid (AA) metabolites in broncho-alveolar lavage (BAL) fluid (i.

Inhibition of the production of mediators of inflammation by corticosteroids is a glucocorticoid receptor-mediated process.

In order to find an explanation for corticosteroid resistance we assessed whether inhibition by dexamethasone (DEX) of the stimulated production of TNF- proportional, variant, IL-6, PGE(2) and LTB(4) by peripheral blood mononuclear cells (MNC) depends on binding to the glucocorticoid receptor (GR), and whether it is determined by the number or the affinity of the GR of these cells. GR number and affinity of MNC were determined by means of a whole cell DEX binding assay. MNC were incubated with DEX and LPS or A23187 in the absence or presence of RU486, a potent steroid antagonist.

Nasal hyperreactivity and inflammation in allergic rhinitis.

The history of allergic disease goes back to 1819, when Bostock described his own 'periodical affection of the eyes and chest', which he called 'summer catarrh'. Since they thought it was produced by the effluvium of new hay, this condition was also called hay fever. Later, in 1873, Blackley established that pollen played an important role in the causation of hay fever.

Lower leukotriene C(4) levels in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid of asthmatic subjects after 2.5 years of inhaled corticosteroid therapy.

Long-term treatment with inhaled corticosteroids has been shown to result in improvement of symptoms and lung function in subjects with asthma. Arachidonic acid (AA) metabolites are thought to play a role in the pathophysiology of asthma. It was assessed whether differences could be found in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) AA metabolite levels between subjects with asthma who were treated for 2.

Analysis of cyt0kine gene expression in stimulated T cells of small children by semi-quantitative PCR.

Only limited amounts of peripheral blood samples can be obtained from small children. Therefore, a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) aided analysis of cytokine gene expression by PBMC or T cells is a valuable tool. We present a combination of procedures to obtain an accurate estimation of the expression of the cytokines IL-4 and IFN-gamma.

Sequential release of cytokines, lipid mediators and nitric oxide in experimental colitis.

The object of this study was to establish whether different pro- and anti-inflammatory mediators were formed in colonic tissue from experimental colitis depending on the course of the disease. Concentrations of mediators of inflammation were examined in colonic tissue in dextran induced colitis in mice. Initial inflammation was produced by 5 days treatment of 10% dextran sodium sulfate (DSS) in drinking water, followed by a further 9 day period of 2% DSS in an attempt to produce a milder chronic inflammation.

Effect of Fluticasone propionate Aqueous Nasal Spray Treatment on Platelet Activating Factor and Eicosanoid Production By nasal Mucosa in Patients with A house Dust Mite Allergy.

The relationship between the release of platelet activating factor (PAF), leukotriene C(4)/D(4)/E(E) (LTC(4)/D(4)/E(4)) and prostaglandin D(2) (PGD(2)) from nasal mucosa in vivo was examined in 24 rhinitis patients allergic to the house dust mite (HDM). During a double blind placebo controlled cross-over study 200 mug fluticasone propionate aqueous nasal spray (FPANS) was administered twice daily for two weeks. In response to allergen provocation (100, 1 000, 10 000 Bu/ml) and during the 9.

Changes in Eicosanoid and Tumour Necrosis Factor-alpha Production by Rat Peritoneal Macrophages During Carrageenin-Induced Peritonitis.

Changes and correlations in cytokine and eicosanoid production by blood monocytes, non-purified and purified peritoneal cells during a carrageenin-induced peritonitis were investigated for a period of ten days. The cells were isolated and stimulated in vitro. Cytokine and eicosanoid production of the non-purified fraction increased steadily during peritonitis.

Cytokine Detection and Modulation in Acute Graft vs. Host Disease in Mice.

A murine model for acute lethal graft vs. host disease (GVHD) was used to study the role that a number of cytokines play in the development of lethal GVHD. In this study we focused on the role of IL-1, IL-2, IL-4, IL-6, IFN-gamma and TNF-alpha.

Arachidonic acid metabolism in TNS-induced chronic and immunologic enteritis in rats, and the effect of 5-ASA.

Inflammation of the rat distal intestine was induced by intradermal sensitization and subsequent multiple intrajejunal challenge with the hapten 2,4,6-trinitrobenzenesulphonic acid (TNBS) via an implanted catheter. The time course of the inflammatory reaction was followed by determination of the enteritis score and measurement of in vitro eicosanoid formation of homogenates of the gut after 0, 1, 2, 4, 7, 14 and 21 days of local daily challenge with 0.08% TNBS.

Pulmonary granulocyte influx and impaired alveolar macrophage adenylyl cyclase responsiveness in developing respiratory distress.

Alveolar macrophages have recently been postulated as being involved in the aetiology of adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). To evaluate their role, basal cyclic AMP levels and responsiveness of adenylyl cyclase alveolar macrophages were determined at four intermediate stages of developing respiratory distress in piglets using a protocol with repeated lung lavage. Examination of alveolar cells recovered from the subsequent lavages reveals an influx of granulocytes (neutrophils and eosinophils) within 1 h of two intensive lung lavages.