Search Results (10)

A cross-sectional study of 3860 health-sector workers across two data collections was conducted to identify the predictive power of different job demands and job resources during the COVID-19 pandemic based on four indicators of distress (COVID-19 traumatic stress, burnout, generalised anxiety, and depression) among health-sector workers. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, measurement invariance checks, and structural equation models were used to evaluate the dimensionality and the effect of the job demands and resources on distress indictors. The identified job demands were workload, confinement, loss, and virus exposure, while the identified job resources were self-efficacy, momentary recuperation, and meaning making. Loss and workload predicted the distress indicators best, while confinement and virus exposure mainly predicted COVID-19 traumatic stress and were less important for the other distress outcomes. Self-efficacy and meaning making negatively predicted distress, while momentary recuperation, controlled for the other demands and resources, was positively related to the distress indicators. Of the typical pandemic-related demands and resources, the experience of loss due to COVID-19 infection was the most important predictor of distress outcomes. Confinement, and especially the awareness of virus exposure, were far less important predictors. Full article

Background: Based on intrinsic capacity (IC) as defined by the World Health Organization, an accelerated decline may be an important precursor of frailty among older adults; however, there is a lack of validated instruments that both screen for frailty and monitor IC. This study aims to develop a comprehensive and acculturative frailty screening scale to determine healthy aging among older Chinese adults. Setting and participants: A cross-sectional and a cohort study both based on community-dwelling older adults aged 65 and older. Methods: This study mainly consisted of two parts. First, the selection and revision of 20 items related to frailty based on a literature review, expert consultation, and stakeholder analysis; second, a cross-sectional study was conducted to simplify the scale and test the reliability and validity of the new frailty screening tool. The fatigue, resistance, ambulation, illness, and loss of weight (FRAIL) scale, the Tilburg frailty indictor (TFI), and a 49-item Frailty Index (FI) were investigated as criteria. Additionally, a cohort study in Shanghai was conducted to verify the predictive validity of the new screening scale. The disability measured by the activity of daily living (ADL), instrumental activity of daily living (IADL) and all-cause mortality were documented as outcomes. Results: A 10-item Chinese frailty screening scale (CFSS-10) was successfully developed and validated. It presented a Cronbach’s α of 0.63 and an intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.73, which indicated good reliability. Taking the other frailty tools as criteria, Kappa values of 0.54–0.58 and an area under the curve of 0.87–0.91 showed good validity. The results of the log-binomial and Poisson models showed a high score, which predicted a higher risk of disability and all-cause mortality. An optimal cut-off point of 5 gave an excellent prediction of one-year disability. Conclusions: The CFSS-10 has good validity and reliability as a quick and acculturative frailty screening scale for community-dwelling older adults in Shanghai. It may also supplement existing frailty screening tools. Full article

The Republic of Kazakhstan began undergoing a political, economic, and social transition after 1991. Population health was declared an important element and was backed with a substantial commitment by the central government to health policy. We examine key trends in the population health status of the Republic of Kazakhstan and seek to understand them in relation to the ongoing political, economic, and social changes in society and its aspirations in health policy. We used the Global Burden of Disease database and toolkit to extract and analyze country-specific descriptive data for the Republic of Kazakhstan to assess life expectancy, child mortality, leading causes of mortality, disability-adjusted life years, and causes and number of years lived with disability. Life expectancy declined from 1990 to 1996 but has subsequently recovered. Ischemic heart disease, stroke, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease remain among the leading causes of death; child mortality for children under 5 years has declined; and cardiovascular risk factors account for the greatest cause of disability. Considering its socioeconomic development over the last two decades, Kazakhstan continues to lag behind OECD countries on leading health indictors despite substantial investments in public health policy. We identify seven strategic priorities to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the health care system. Full article

Increasing plant diversity in the perennial phase of pasture-crop rotations is predicted to positively affect belowground productivity and microbial communities and, in turn, augment belowground agroecosystem services including soil health and carbon storage. Using two grass and one legume forage species grown as monocultures and combined in four intercropped combinations, we evaluated how species identity and richness influence belowground productivity, soil microbial communities, and soil C pools. Though grass-legume intercrops demonstrated higher aboveground productivity than component species grown in monoculture, higher species richness was not associated with increased productivity belowground. Root biomass was greatest in tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.) monoculture, and intercrops including this species. Species identity was similarly associated with soil microbial community attributes. Orchardgrass (Dactylis glomerata L.) monoculture exhibited lower total microbial abundance and lower bacterial abundance than grass-legume intercrops. Bacterial abundance was also lower in orchardgrass compared to white clover (Trifolium repens L.) monoculture. A common indictor of soil function, the fungal:bacterial ratio, was higher in grass-only than clover-only stands. The prevalence of species-specific impacts on roots and microbial communities in this study suggests that species identity may have a stronger influence than species richness on belowground agroecosystem services from perennial forages in temperate regions. Full article

The Covid-19 pandemic put a heavy burden on member states in the European Union. To govern the pandemic, having access to reliable geo-information is key for monitoring the spatial distribution of the outbreak over time. This study aims to analyze the role of spatio-temporal information in governing the pandemic in the European Union and its member states. The European Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) system and selected national dashboards from member states were assessed to analyze which spatio-temporal information was used, how the information was visualized and whether this changed over the course of the pandemic. Initially, member states focused on their own jurisdiction by creating national dashboards to monitor the pandemic. Information between member states was not aligned. Producing reliable data and timeliness reporting was problematic, just like selecting indictors to monitor the spatial distribution and intensity of the outbreak. Over the course of the pandemic, with more knowledge about the virus and its characteristics, interventions of member states to govern the outbreak were better aligned at the European level. However, further integration and alignment of public health data, statistical data and spatio-temporal data could provide even better information for governments and actors involved in managing the outbreak, both at national and supra-national level. The Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe (INSPIRE) initiative and the NUTS system provide a framework to guide future integration and extension of existing systems. Full article

The incidence of enteric viruses in treated wastewater and their potential release into the environment or use for agriculture are very critical matters in public health. In our study, PCR (polymerase chain reaction) analysis of enteric viruses was performed on 59 samples of influents and effluents collected from Tubli wastewater treatment plant (Water Pollution Control Center (WPCC)) and Tubli Bay, where the effluents were discharged, in Kingdom of Bahrain during two sampling periods. Four clinically essential waterborne enteric viruses were examined: enterovirus (EV), hepatitis A virus (HAV), astroviruses (AV), and rotaviruses (RV) and compared to standard bacterial and bacteriophages indicators of fecal pollution. Detection rates of EV, AV, HAV, and RV in the influent samples were 100%, 75%, 12.5%, and 12.5%, respectively, while 50% of the effluent samples from Tubli WPCC contained only EV RNA. None of the tested enteric viruses could be detected in any of the samples collected directly from Tubli Bay. Effluent samples from Tubli plant did not show significant seasonal differences. Since detection of enteric viruses genome does not necessarily indicate infectivity, the infectivity of these viruses was evaluated through isolation and growth of indictor bacteria and bacteriophages. High concentration of fecal bacteriological indicators was detected in all effluents samples (100%): 3.20 × 10³ cfu/mL for E. coli, 1.32 × 10³ cfu/mL for Salmonella spp., and 1.92 × 10³ cfu/mL for Shigella spp. E. coli and Salmonella specific bacteriophages were also detected in the effluent samples in high titers. The combined results of PCR and bacterial enumeration point to a probable public health risk via the use of these wastewaters in agriculture or their discharge into the sea. Continuous surveillance of viral and bacterial prevalence and their resistance to sewage disinfection procedures could contribute to a better control of risks associated with the recycling of effluent wastewater and its release into the environment. Full article

The influence of perceived unfairness at the workplace (organizational injustice) on employee health is well established. Several theories explain the unpleasant and stressful nature of the experience of injustice, using trust as a central element. This study examines the effect of trust to supervisor on the association of perceived injustice with vagal tone—an objective marker for stress experience. Questionnaires assessed organizational justice and trust. Vagal tone was measured by indictors of heart rate variability (HRV), which captured parasympathetic (pNN50, RMSSD, and HF) and parasympathetic and sympathetic (SDNN, and LF) regulation. Synergistic effects were tested by linear regressions with interaction terms between organizational justice and trust to supervisor in 38 managers. Organizational justice was related to HRV indicators that reflect in particular the parasympathetic branch (β_pNN50 = 0.32, p < 0.05; β_RMSSD = 0.27, p < 0.1), and interaction effects with trust to supervisor were also most pronounced there (interaction β_pNN50 = −0.41, p < 0.01; β_RMSSD = −0.47, p < 0.01). In conclusion, the combination of low perceived justice and trust to supervisor appears substantial to the physiological stress threat of employees. Promoting fairness at the workplace might reduce stress; if not possible, trust to supervisor should be enhanced. Full article

On-line remaining-useful-life (RUL) prognosis is still a problem for satellite Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries. Meanwhile, capacity, widely used as a health indicator of a battery (HI), is inconvenient or even impossible to measure. Aiming at practical and precise prediction of the RUL of satellite Li-ion batteries, a dynamic long short-term memory (DLSTM) neural-network-based indirect RUL prognosis is proposed in this paper. Firstly, an indirect HI based on the Spearman correlation analysis method is extracted from the battery discharge voltages, and the relationship between the indirect HI indices and battery capacity is established using a polynomial fitting method. Then, by integrating the Adam method, L2 regularization method, and incremental learning, a DLSTM method is proposed and applied for Li-ion battery RUL prognosis. Finally, verification of the results on NASA #5 battery data sets demonstrates that the proposed method has better dynamic performance and higher accuracy than the three other popular methods. Full article

Human mortality is closely related to natural climate-determined levels of thermal environmental stress and the resulting thermophysiological strain. Most climate-mortality research has focused on seasonal extremes during winter and summer when mortality is the highest, while relatively little attention has been paid to mortality during the transitional seasons of autumn and spring. The body acclimatizes to heat in the summer and cold in winter and readjusts through acclimatization during the transitions between the two during which time the body experiences the thermophysiological strain of readjustment. To better understand the influences of weather on mortality through the acclimatization process, the aim here is to examine the periods that link very cold and very warms seasons. The study uses the Acclimatization Thermal Strain Index (ATSI), which is a comparative measure of short-term thermophysiological impact on the body. ATSI centers on heat exchange with the body’s core via the respiratory system, which cannot be protected. The analysis is based on data for a major city in the climatic region of the Russian Far East characterized by very hot summers and extremely cold winters. The results show that although mortality peaks in winter (January) and is at its lowest in summer (August), there is not a smooth rise through autumn nor a smooth decline through spring. A secondary peak occurs in autumn (October) with a smaller jump in May. This suggests the acclimatization from warm-to-cold produces more thermophysiological strain than the transition from cold-to-warm. The study shows that ATSI is a useful metric for quantifying the extent to which biophysical adaptation plays a role in increased strain on the body during re-acclimatization and for this reason is a more appropriate climatic indictor than air temperature alone. The work gives useful bioclimatic information on risks involved in transitional seasons in regions characterized by climatic extremes. This could be handy in planning and managing health services to the public and measures that might be used to help mitigate impacts. Full article

The plasma process is often used in the fabrication of semiconductor wafers. However, due to the lack of real-time etching control, this may result in some unacceptable process performances and thus leads to significant waste and lower wafer yield. In order to maximize the product wafer yield, a timely and accurately process fault or abnormal detection in a plasma reactor is needed. Optical emission spectroscopy (OES) is one of the most frequently used metrologies in in-situ process monitoring. Even though OES has the advantage of non-invasiveness, it is required to provide a huge amount of information. As a result, the data analysis of OES becomes a big challenge. To accomplish real-time detection, this work employed the sigma matching method technique, which is the time series of OES full spectrum intensity. First, the response model of a healthy plasma spectrum was developed. Then, we defined a matching rate as an indictor for comparing the difference between the tested wafers response and the health sigma model. The experimental results showed that this proposal method can detect process faults in real-time, even in plasma etching tools. Full article