Activity

The coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic spread throughout the world from the beginning of 2020, increasing healthcare professionals’ workloads and levels of physical and emotional stress.

To determine the prevalence of burnout syndrome in Spanish radiologists during the COVID-19 pandemic and the factors associated with the development of this syndrome, and to compare these findings with those obtained before the pandemic.

This observation study took place between April 2020 and August 2020 (during the pandemic) through an online survey. A total of 150 responses were obtained. Demographic and work-related information was compiled. Burnout syndrome was measured with the Maslach Burnout Inventory Human Services Survey (MBI-HSS). The prevalence and characteristics of burnout syndrome obtained in this survey were compared with those of the same survey done in 2019. We performed a statistical analysis to identify possible risk factors and protective factors associated with this syndrome and to determine the the need to assess support for professional wellbeing of radiologists in Spain. No correlations were identified between burnout and gender, age, number of calls, years in the job, annual income, teaching, marital status, number of children, or type of contract.

To review the prognostic usefulness of chest X-rays in selecting patients with suspected SARS-CoV-2 infection.

This cross-sectional descriptive observational study analyzed 978 patients with suspected SARS-CoV-2 infections who underwent chest X-ray examinations in the emergency department of a tertiary hospital in March 2020. We separately analyzed demographic, clinical, and prognostic variables in two groups of patients those in whom reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was done (n=535) and those in whom RT-PCR was not done because of low clinical suspicion (n=443).

In the group of patients with RT-PCR, the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 was 70.4%, and the sensitivity of chest X-rays was 62.8%. In the group of patients without RT-PCR, chest X-rays were negative in 97.5%, corroborating the low clinical suspicion; these patients were discharged, and 5.6% of them reconsulted with mild forms of the disease. In the group of patients with RT-PCR, we observed no statistically significant differences in the percentage of pathologic chest X-rays between patients hospitalized in the ICU (72.9%) and in those hospitalized in other wards (68.3%) (p=0.22).

In the context of the pandemic, patients with low clinical suspicion and negative chest X-rays can be discharged with a low probability of reconsultation or of developing severe COVID19. In patients with RT-PCR positive for SARS-CoV-2, chest X-rays have no prognostic usefulness.

In the context of the pandemic, patients with low clinical suspicion and negative chest X-rays can be discharged with a low probability of reconsultation or of developing severe COVID19. In patients with RT-PCR positive for SARS-CoV-2, chest X-rays have no prognostic usefulness.

(1) Examine associations of foster care exit type (e.g., reunification with birth family, adoption, guardianship/permanent relative placement, or emancipation from care) with risk of entry into state prison; (2) Examine racial disparities in those associations.

With data on over 10,000 Wisconsin youth who entered foster care in mid- to late-childhood, we present imprisonment rates in young adulthood by race, sex, and foster care exit type. Proportional hazards models with a robust set of covariates compared prison entry rates among the most common exit types-reunification, aging out, and guardianship/permanent relative placement.

Nearly 13% of the sample experienced imprisonment in young adulthood. Compared with emancipated youth, hazard of imprisonment was 1.58-1.96 times higher among reunified youth. Differences were largely unexplained by observed individual, family, or foster care characteristics. Imprisonment rates were similar for emancipated youth and youth exiting to guardianship/permanent relative placement. Hazard of imprisonment for reunified Black youth was twice that of reunified white youth, but racial differences in prison entry were statistically non-significant among emancipated youth.

Efforts to reduce incarceration risk for

youth in foster care are needed. Reunified youth may benefit from services and supports currently provided primarily to emancipated youth.

Efforts to reduce incarceration risk for all youth in foster care are needed. Reunified youth may benefit from services and supports currently provided primarily to emancipated youth.How does local ethnic demography affect the conduct of majoritarian elections? Because legislative elections in majoritarian systems are contested locally, local ethno-political polarization increases the risk of pre-election violence. In districts that are polarized between politically competing ethnic groups, violence can be targeted with comparative ease at opposing voters, and can, if perpetrated collectively, mobilize the perpetrators’ co-ethnics. I do not expect such dynamics in PR systems where political competition plays out at higher geographical levels. To test this argument, I combine new data on the ethnic composition of local populations in 22 African countries with monthly data on riots and survey data on campaign violence. Ethno-politically polarized districts in majoritarian and mixed electoral systems see substantively larger increases in the number of riots prior to legislative elections and more fear of pre-election violence among citizens than non-polarized districts in the same country and at the same time. I do not find these patterns in PR systems. The results enhance our understanding of how electoral systems interact with local ethnic demography in shaping pre-election violence.Training other countries’ armed forces is a go-to foreign policy tool for the United States and other states. A growing literature explores the effects of military training, but researchers lack detailed data on training activities. To assess the origins and consequences of military training, as well as changing patterns over time, this project provides a new, global dataset of US foreign military training. This article describes the scope of the data along with the variables collected, coding procedures, and spatial and temporal patterns. We demonstrate the added value of the data in their much greater coverage of training activities, showing differences from both existing datasets and aggregate foreign military aid data. Reanalyzing prior research findings linking US foreign military training to the risk of coups d’état in recipient states, we find that this effect is limited to a single US program representing a small fraction of overall US training activities. selleck chemical The data show comprehensively how the United States attempts to influence partner military forces in a wide variety of ways and suggest new avenues of research.Effects of Si and Sr on solidification microstructure and thermal conductivity of Al-Si binary alloys and Al-9Si-Sr ternary were investigated, respectively, with a special focus on the relationship between solidification microstructure and thermal conductivity. It was found that (i) in Al-Si binary alloys, with increasing Si content, α-Al grain size increases and then decreases when Si content is over 7 wt%, while the percentage of eutectic Si continuously increases, which significantly decreases the thermal conductivity and electrical conductivity, and (ii) in Al-9Si-Sr ternary alloys, the presence of Sr has no significant effect on α-Al grain, but effectively modifies eutectic Si and significantly improves the thermal and electrical conductivity. On this basis, two theoretical calculation models [the Maxwell model and the Hashin-Shtrikman (H-S) model] were used to elucidate the relationship between solidification microstructure and thermal conductivity. Compared with the Maxwell model, the H-S model fits better with the measured values. The obtained results are very helpful to the precise composition control during alloy design and recycling of Al-Si-based alloys with the aim to further improve the thermal conductivity of Al-Si-based alloys.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10853-022-07045-7.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10853-022-07045-7.This paper examines the recent growth of experiential learning (EL) and the university-community (or so-called town-gown, TG) connections created as a result of this expansion. The research is framed by critical scholarship on the nature and role of the university and the place of liberal education specifically, as well as policy drivers aimed at social and economic impacts from EL. Two subthemes are also examined first, the role of the arts, humanities and social sciences disciplines in EL expansion and, second, the extent to which TG connections focus on the university’s local host community as opposed to more distant and even international arrangements. Mixed research methods including public document analysis and key informant interviews are used to document and interpret EL developments across nine varied universities in Ontario, Canada. The results underline broad sector commitment to EL that in turn creates new and different TG connections for the university. Rapid expansion has brought a variety of challenges identified both by universities and community EL partners. The paper concludes with discussion of policy implications and consideration of the future of EL in light of the ‘digital pivot’ of the COVID-19 pandemic.Over the past 20 years, international student mobility has experienced a three-fold increase, as planned and emerging education hubs have attracted increasing numbers of students. The appeal of alternative destinations is strengthened by their cultural, linguistic, and geographic proximity, as well as a growing number of internationally ranked universities. This article quantifies shifts in international student mobility and world university rankings over a consequential 20-year period (1999/2000-2018/2019) at the beginning of the twenty-first century. It examines shifts in the number of county-to-country connections (density), relative country importance in the network (centrality), and network structure (multipolarity). The results indicate the overall network density steadily increased year-to-year, with a three-fold increase in the number of country-to-country connections, as influence was more widely and evenly distributed among a larger number of core countries within the network. As the number of universities in planned and emerging destinations listed in the rankings doubled, the network structure indicated a movement toward multipolarity, where a more diverse set of countries exerted greater relative influence in the overall network. The results suggest that while core-periphery dynamics in international student mobility persist, they also have begun to shift, as a larger and more diverse subset of planned and emerging educational hubs in Asia, South America, Africa, and the Middle East exert increasing influence in the overall network.This qualitative study integrates key theories on epistemic decolonization from Asia, Africa, and Latin America to investigate the decolonial awareness and curriculum practices of teachers and international students in an English as a medium of instruction (EMI) program on Chinese philosophy and culture at a top-rated university in China. Content analysis of the in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 17 informants reveals that the teachers and students all demonstrated varying degrees of decolonial awareness related to the marginalized status of Chinese philosophy in Anglo–Eurocentric disciplinary systems and adopted the following strategies to decolonialize the curriculum and foster epistemic justice in the unequal geopolitics associated with knowledge production (1) historicizing Chinese philosophy as a modern discipline that has emerged from inter-knowledge dialogues across philosophical traditions and is still in constant tension with the complex interplay of the semi-colonial, imperial, and Cold War legacies; (2) abandoning the Anglo-Eurocentric benchmark by pluralizing the disciplinary contemporaneity, and (3) cultivating epistemic trust in Chinese through intercultural translation.