Seropositivity of Main Vector-Borne Pathogens in Dogs Across Europe

Introduction: Canine Vector-borne disease (CVBD) has been an area of increasing interest in Europe over the last few decades, and there have been changes in the prevalence and distribution of many of these diseases. Monitoring CVBD infections in Europe is often done by individual countries, but aggregated data for the European countries are helpful to understand the distribution of CVBDs. Methods: We used an extensive retrospective database of results from point-of-care rapid enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) tests on dogs across Europe to identify distribution and seropositivity in animals tested for selected CVBDs (Anaplasma spp., Ehrlichia spp., Borrelia burgdorferi, Leishmania spp., and Dirofilaria immitis) from 2016 through 2020. Geographic distribution of positive tests and relative percent positive values were mapped by the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics classification for regions with sufficient test results for reporting.Results: A total of 404,617 samples corresponding with 1,134,648 canine results were available from dogs tested in 35 countries over the 5-year study period. Over this period the number of test results per year increased whereas test positivity decreased. Leishmania spp. had the largest increase in total test results from 25,000 results in 2016 to over 60,000 results in 2020. Test positivity for Leishmania spp. fell from 13.9% in 2016 to 9.4% in 2020. Test positivity fell for Anaplasma spp. (7.3% to 5.3%), Ehrlichia spp. (4.3% to 3.4%), and Borrelia burgdorferi (3.3% to 2.4%). D. immitis test positivity trended down with a high of 2.7% in 2016 and low of 1.8% in 2018. Leishmania spp. test positivity was highest in endemic areas and in several non-endemic countries with low numbers of test results. Co-positivity rates were significantly higher than expected for all pathogen test positive pairs except for Ehrlichia spp. with Borrelia burgdorferi and D. immitis with Borrelia burgdorferi.Conclusions: This study represents the largest data set on CVBD seropositivity in Europe to date. The increase in the number of test results and decreasing test positivity over the study period may reflect changes in testing behavior and increased screening of healthy animals. The Europe-wide mapping of CVBD provides expected test-positivity that can help inform veterinarians’ decisions on screening and improve prevention and identification of these important, sometimes zoonotic, diseases.

Safety Workaround of Registered Nurses in Malaysian Public Hospitals: A Pilot Study

Safety workarounds stay a crucial concern for employers, significantly within the healthcare industry wherever hospital nurses' safety has deteriorated throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. This pilot study used descriptive and correlational analyses to explore and analyse the reliability of the constructs of communication barriers, work engagement, and burnout on safety workarounds, and also their relationship. This study was conducted with 30 registered nurses in public hospitals in the State of Perak, Malaysia. The results showed that all scales to measure burnout, work engagement, communication barriers, and safety workaround had moderate to excellent feasibility and had sufficient test-retest reliability. The results also indicate that all two independent factors, namely burnout and communication barrier, were shown to be negatively and significantly correlated with safety workaround, whereas work engagement was found to be positively and significantly correlated with safety workaround. This study is anticipated to fill a spot within the literature as a result of there hasn't been a lot of analysis on nurses' safety workarounds within the Malaysian setting. These results may contribute to a stronger understanding of the constructs of communication barriers, work engagement, and burnout and how to deal with safety workaround of registered nurses in Malaysian public hospitals.

Reliability Assessment of Space Station Based on Multi-Layer and Multi-Type Risks

A space station is a typical phased-mission system, and assessing its reliability during its configuration is an important engineering action. Traditional methods usually require extensive data to carry out a layered reliability assessment from components to the system. These methods suffer from lack of sufficient test data, and the assessment process becomes very difficult, especially in the early stage of the configuration. This paper proposes a reliability assessment method for the space station configuration mission, using multi-layer and multi-type risks. Firstly, the risk layer and the risk type for the space station configuration are defined and identified. Then, the key configuration risks are identified comprehensively, considering their occurrence likelihood and consequence severity. High load risks are identified through risk propagation feature analysis. Finally, the configuration reliability model is built and the state probabilities are computed, based on the probabilistic risk propagation assessment (PRPA) method using the assessment probability data. Two issues are addressed in this paper: (1) how to build the configuration reliability model with three layers and four types of risks in the early stage of the configuration; (2) how to quantitatively assess the configuration mission reliability using data from the existing operational database and data describing the propagation features. The proposed method could be a useful tool for the complex aerospace system reliability assessment in the early stage.

Negative imaginariness and positive realness analysis of state-space symmetric systems with interval uncertainty

In this article, the state-space symmetric systems with symmetrical interval uncertainty that have positive real and negative imaginary properties are studied. First, a necessary and sufficient test in view of a state matrix is derived for a state-space symmetric system to be negative imaginary, which allows having poles at the origin. Second, bounds on symmetrical interval uncertainty that guarantee the positive realness and negative imaginariness of state-space symmetric systems are provided. Finally, the main results are illustrated by a resistor–capacitor network and a numerical design example.

"A New Instrument for Assessment of Emotion Regulation: The Emotion Regulation Interview-Revised Form"

"The main purpose of the present study is to adapt the Emotion Regulation Interview (ERI) into Turkish and to examine its psychometric properties, while at the same time, to revise it by extending its scope in terms of emotions, emotion regulation (ER) strategies, and the efficacy measures related to ER strategies. For this purpose, various adjustments have been made to the original interview form, resulting in the Emotion Regulation Interview-Revised Form (ERI-RF). The ERI-RF evaluates the regulation of the emotions (i.e., anxiety, sadness, anger) experienced in romantic relationships, recognizing that emotions and ER mostly emerge in close relationships. A total of 138 participants in romantic relationships were interviewed using the ERI-RF, and second interviews were conducted with 31 of the participants for the assessment of test-retest reliability. Results showed that the ERI-RF had good validity results, and the use of some ER strategies to certain emotions demonstrated sufficient test-retest reliability. It was concluded that the ERI-RF, as an assessment tool for the evaluation of a wide range of ER strategies based on the most frequently experienced emotions, has sufficient psychometric properties, and that its use in different samples in feature studies may yield useful results."

Is it feasible to assess self-reported quality of life in individuals who are deaf and have intellectual disabilities?

Purpose There is consensus that Quality of Life (QOL) should be obtained through self-reports from people with intellectual Disability (ID). Thus far, there have been no attempts to collect self-reported QOL from people who are deaf and have ID. Methods Based on an established short measure for QOL (EUROHIS-QOL), an adapted easy-to-understand sign language interview was developed and applied in a population (n = 61) with severe-to-profound hearing loss and mild-to-profound ID. Self-reports were conducted at two time points (t1 and t2), 6 months apart. The Stark QOL, an established picture-based questionnaire, was also obtained at t2 and three Proxy ratings of QOL (from caregivers) were conducted for each participant at t1. Results Self-reported QOL was successfully administered at both time points for 44 individuals with mild and moderate ID (IQ reference age between 3.3 and 11.8 years). The self-reports showed sufficient test–retest reliability and significant correlations with the Stark QOL. As anticipated, self-reported QOL was higher than proxy-reported QOL. Test–retest reliability and internal consistency were good for self-reported QOL. Conclusion Reliable and valid self-reports of QOL can be obtained from deaf adults with mild-moderate ID using standard inventories adapted to the linguistic and cognitive level of these individuals.

Disturbance Simulation in the Packaging Process of Confectionary Using Virtual Commissioning

Operator assistance systems can help to reduce disturbance-related machine downtime in food production and packaging processes, especially when combined with machine learning algorithms. These assistance systems analyze the available sensor signals of the process control over time to help operators identify the causes of disturbances. Training such systems requires sufficient test data, which often are hardly available. Thus, this paper presents a study to investigate how test data for teaching machine learning algorithms can be generated by numerical simulation. The potential of using virtual commissioning (VC) software for simulating disturbances of discrete processes is examined, considering the example of a friction and collision-afflicted sub-process from an intermitting wrapping machine for confectionary. In this study the software industrialPhysics (iP) is analyzed regarding accuracy of static and dynamic friction and restitution. The values are verified by setting up virtual substitute tests and comparing the results with analytically determined values. Subsequently, prerecorded disturbances are classified, and seven selected elements are simulated in VC software, recording visual effects and switching the characteristics of sensors. The verification shows that VC software is generally adequate for the assigned task. Restrictions occur regarding the computing power required of the built-in physics engine and the resulting reduction of the machine to be simulated.

The Design and Comparison of Central and Distributed Light Sensored Smart LED Lighting Systems

There is a lack of published peer-reviewed research comparing the efficiencies of distributed versus central sensor-controlled LED lighting systems. This research proposes improving the smart illumination of a room with external fenestration using central and distributed light sensors. The optical and electrical measurements of the daylight have been made in the case where the light was not distributed evenly and not sufficient. Test results show that the proposed distributed light sensor illumination system has increased the efficiency by 28% when compared to the proposed central system. It has also been shown that the two tested systems are more cost-effective than common smart illumination systems.