Lazer

AIM: The process of being admitted to a hospital is widely recognised as a distressing encounter for children, frequently resulting in notable levels of anxiety. The main aim was to assess the effectiveness of bibliotherapy in reducing anxiety and to associate anxiety levels with demographic and clinical variables. METHODS: This study was conducted at a paediatric ward in a tertiary care hospital located in Tamil Nadu, India, for 3 months from 1 August 2023-30 October 2023...

IMPORTANCE: The frequent occurrence of cognitive symptoms in post-COVID-19 condition has been described, but the nature of these symptoms and their demographic and functional factors are not well characterized in generalizable populations. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the prevalence of self-reported cognitive symptoms in post-COVID-19 condition, in comparison with individuals with prior acute SARS-CoV-2 infection who did not develop post-COVID-19 condition, and their association with other individual features, including depressive symptoms and functional status...

The COVID-19 pandemic offers an unprecedented natural experiment providing insights into the emergence of collective behavioral changes of both exogenous (government mandated) and endogenous (spontaneous reaction to infection risks) origin. Here, we characterize collective physical distancing-mobility reductions, minimization of contacts, shortening of contact duration-in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the pre-vaccine era by analyzing de-identified, privacy-preserving location data for a panel of over 5...

Antifungal prophylaxis with a mold-effective agent has led to a substantial decrease in invasive infections caused by Aspergillus spp. in the management of patients with acute myeloid leukemia undergoing induction chemotherapy. However, difficult-to-treat infections caused by other molds, such as Fusarium, Lomentospora, and Scedosporium species may still complicate the neutropenic period. Here, we present a case of a 23-year-old woman with acute myeloid leukemia who developed a breakthrough invasive fungal rhinosinusitis caused by Fusarium proliferatum/annulatum on posaconazole prophylaxis...

OBJECTIVES: Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS) is the most common peripheral nerve compression syndrome. This study aims to evaluate the additive contribution of phonophoresis and low-level laser therapy (LLLT) to tendon and nerve gliding exercises electrophysiologically, ultrasonographically, and clinically in the treatment of moderate CTS. METHODS: The sample consisted of 45 patients with moderate CTS, randomized into three groups. Group 1 received phonophoresis and exercise, Group 2 received LLLT and exercise, and Group 3 received exercise alone...

BACKGROUND: Acute mesenteric ischemia (AMI) is responsible for one in a thousand emergency hospital admissions in America and Europe and is associated with high morbidity and mortality rates. Current diagnostic and treatment methods fall short of desired outcomes, often resulting in delayed diagnoses and difficulties in detecting ischemic bowel tissue during treatment. This study evaluates the diagnostic value of commonly used biochemical markers in clinical practice-creatine kinase, C-reactive protein (CRP), and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH)-alongside blood flow measurements using laser Doppler in a rat model of experimental mesenteric ischemia...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

It is critical to understand how algorithms structure the information people see and how those algorithms support or undermine society's core values. We offer a normative framework for the assessment of the information curation algorithms that determine much of what people see on the internet. The framework presents two levels of assessment: one for individual-level effects and another for systemic effects. With regard to individual-level effects we discuss whether (a) the information is aligned with the user's interests, (b) the information is accurate, and (c) the information is so appealing that it is difficult for a person's self-regulatory resources to ignore ("agency hacking")...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

Organisms process sensory information in the context of their own moving bodies, an idea referred to as embodiment. This idea is important for developmental neuroscience, robotics and systems neuroscience. The mechanisms supporting embodiment are unknown, but a manifestation could be the observation in mice of brain-wide neuromodulation, including in the primary visual cortex, driven by task-irrelevant spontaneous body movements. We tested this hypothesis in macaque monkeys (Macaca mulatta), a primate model for human vision, by simultaneously recording visual cortex activity and facial and body movements...

IMPORTANCE: The COVID-19 pandemic has been notable for the widespread dissemination of misinformation regarding the virus and appropriate treatment. OBJECTIVE: To quantify the prevalence of non-evidence-based treatment for COVID-19 in the US and the association between such treatment and endorsement of misinformation as well as lack of trust in physicians and scientists. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: This single-wave, population-based, nonprobability internet survey study was conducted between December 22, 2022, and January 16, 2023, in US residents 18 years or older who reported prior COVID-19 infection...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

IMPORTANCE: Marked elevation in levels of depressive symptoms compared with historical norms have been described during the COVID-19 pandemic, and understanding the extent to which these are associated with diminished in-person social interaction could inform public health planning for future pandemics or other disasters. OBJECTIVE: To describe the association between living in a US county with diminished mobility during the COVID-19 pandemic and self-reported depressive symptoms, while accounting for potential local and state-level confounding factors...

Many critics raise concerns about the prevalence of 'echo chambers' on social media and their potential role in increasing political polarization. However, the lack of available data and the challenges of conducting large-scale field experiments have made it difficult to assess the scope of the problem1,2 . Here we present data from 2020 for the entire population of active adult Facebook users in the USA showing that content from 'like-minded' sources constitutes the majority of what people see on the platform, although political information and news represent only a small fraction of these exposures...

We studied the effects of exposure to reshared content on Facebook during the 2020 US election by assigning a random set of consenting, US-based users to feeds that did not contain any reshares over a 3-month period. We find that removing reshared content substantially decreases the amount of political news, including content from untrustworthy sources, to which users are exposed; decreases overall clicks and reactions; and reduces partisan news clicks. Further, we observe that removing reshared content produces clear decreases in news knowledge within the sample, although there is some uncertainty about how this would generalize to all users...

Does Facebook enable ideological segregation in political news consumption? We analyzed exposure to news during the US 2020 election using aggregated data for 208 million US Facebook users. We compared the inventory of all political news that users could have seen in their feeds with the information that they saw (after algorithmic curation) and the information with which they engaged. We show that (i) ideological segregation is high and increases as we shift from potential exposure to actual exposure to engagement; (ii) there is an asymmetry between conservative and liberal audiences, with a substantial corner of the news ecosystem consumed exclusively by conservatives; and (iii) most misinformation, as identified by Meta's Third-Party Fact-Checking Program, exists within this homogeneously conservative corner, which has no equivalent on the liberal side...

We investigated the effects of Facebook's and Instagram's feed algorithms during the 2020 US election. We assigned a sample of consenting users to reverse-chronologically-ordered feeds instead of the default algorithms. Moving users out of algorithmic feeds substantially decreased the time they spent on the platforms and their activity. The chronological feed also affected exposure to content: The amount of political and untrustworthy content they saw increased on both platforms, the amount of content classified as uncivil or containing slur words they saw decreased on Facebook, and the amount of content from moderate friends and sources with ideologically mixed audiences they saw increased on Facebook...

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of Teethmate desensitizer, a dentin bonding agent (DBA), Nd:YAG laser, and Er:YAG laser, which provides dentin tubule occlusion in the pulp chamber with different mechanisms, in preventing tooth discoloration due to regenerative endodontic treatment. MATERIALS AND METHODS: One hundred five extracted maxillary human incisors with single roots and single canals were included in the study. The apical third of each tooth was resected below the enamel-cementum junction (CEJ) to obtain a standard root length as 10 ± 1 mm...

If popular online platforms systematically expose their users to partisan and unreliable news, they could potentially contribute to societal issues such as rising political polarization1,2 . This concern is central to the 'echo chamber'3-5 and 'filter bubble'6,7 debates, which critique the roles that user choice and algorithmic curation play in guiding users to different online information sources8-10 . These roles can be measured as exposure, defined as the URLs shown to users by online platforms, and engagement, defined as the URLs selected by users...

A novel keggin-type tetra-metalates substituted polyoxometalate was functionalized by 3-(aminopropyl)-imidazole (3-API) supporting a ligand substitution method. In this paper, polyoxometalate (POMs) (NH4 )3 [PMo12 O40 ] and transition metal substituted of (NH4 )3 [{PMIV Mo11 O40 }.(H2 O)] (M = Mn, V) are used as one of the adsorbents. The 3-API/POMs hybrid have been synthesized and used as adsorbent for the photo-catalysis of azo-dye molecule degradation after visible-light illumination as a simulated organic contaminant in water...