Coping behaviors and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic: situational and habitual effects on mental distress with hybrid model analysis.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic brought about widespread mental health challenges. Yet, its mental health impacts vary depending on the coping strategies people adopt to manage stress. The COVID-19 pandemic, with its rapidly changing circumstances, provides an opportune context to examine how different coping behaviors are linked to mental distress.

From Policy to Culture: How Restraint-Free Care Became Organizational Practice in Long-Term Care Settings in South Korea.

Despite ethical concerns, physical restraint (PR) remains common in aged care. This study examines how "Restraint Zero" practices were developed and sustained in two South Korean facilities through a multiple case study. Using interviews with staff and leadership, we explored organizational strategies enabling PR elimination.

Accessible water quality monitoring through hybrid human-machine colorimetric methods.

Effective water quality monitoring is important for environmental protection and public health, yet conventional field and laboratory methods each present significant limitations. Field tools such as colorimetric test strips offer affordability and accessibility but are prone to subjective interpretation and environmental variability. In contrast, laboratory-based techniques provide high precision but are costly, resource-intensive, and less feasible in decentralized contexts.

Comparison of Mortality Prediction Between the Model for End-Stage Liver Disease-3.0 (MELD-3.0) and the Model for End-Stage Liver Disease-Lactate (MELD-La) in Korean Patients with Liver Cirrhosis.

: The Model for End-Stage Liver Disease (MELD) score has widely been used for mortality prediction in liver cirrhosis (LC) patients and transplantation allocation. There have been recent modifications of MELD scores, such as MELD-Lactate (MELD-La) and MELD-3.0.

Unpacking the use of complementary and alternative medicine in Hispanic college students: The role of exposure and attitudes.

Although complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has been widely used, there are a few quantitative studies through which these trends in minority young adults can be analyzed. The purpose of this study is to describe and understand Hispanics' use of Mexican American complementary and alternative medicine with a focus on Hispanic college students' exposure and attitudes toward CAM. We surveyed at a mid-sized, Hispanic-serving public university located in the southwestern US.

Comparing the Influences of Spouses or Partners With Other Family Members in the Ability of Young Asian Americans to Maintain a Healthy Lifestyle.

The relationship between family dynamics and health has been extensively studied, but the specific pathways involved are not yet fully understood. The role of intimate partner relationships in promoting and maintaining healthy lifestyle behaviors remains understudied, particularly in minority populations. This study addressed this gap by examining how frequent spousal and familial interactions affect healthy lifestyle behaviors in young Asian Americans.

The Impact of Cognitive Impairment on Life Satisfaction in Older Adults: Examining the Double Mediating Roles of Neighborhood Satisfaction and Social Participation.

The environment plays an integral role in the lives of individuals with cognitive decline. This study analyzed data from the National Survey of Older Koreans (2020) (9,885 older Koreans). The results showed that cognitively impaired group had lower community environment satisfaction than the cognitively healthy group, which led to lower social participation and lower life satisfaction, and the double mediation effect was significant (B = -.

COVID-19 Risk Assessment Among Vulnerable Small Business Owners in El Paso County, Texas.

Background: Our objective was to deliver actionable, worksite-specific COVID-19 risk assessments and mitigation strategies tailored to vulnerable workers in one of the highest-risk areas in the US.

Methods: Four trained, bilingual (English/Spanish) community health workers (CHWs) recruited small businesses (ie, ≤20 employees) across various industries and executed novel on-site infectious disease risk assessment surveys of at least one employer and one employee.

Results: Of 102 participating businesses (95% Hispanic-owned), 96% were characterized as "high risk" or "very high risk" for disease transmission.

Preexisting Mental Disorders and Mental Distress During the Pandemic: The Roles of Stress, Risk Perception, and Loneliness.

Purpose: The COVID-19 pandemic has imposed unprecedented stressors on individuals globally, leading to significant mental health challenges. This study examines the relationship between perceived adversities experienced during the pandemic-such as stress, risk perception, and loneliness-and the mental health outcomes of individuals with a specific focus on those already grappling with mental disorders.

Methods: The study analyzed data from 8,259 adults who participated in surveys between waves 4 (April 2020) and 29 (June 2021) of the Understanding American Study.

Effect of a Combination of KC3 and Extracts in Respiratory Discomfort: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial.

The increased global prevalence of chronic respiratory diseases in recent years has caused a substantial public health burden. KC3 and Houtt. (LJH) extracts can alleviate respiratory symptoms and improve lung function in vitro and in vivo.

MELD-GRAIL-Na Is a Better Predictor of Mortality Than MELD in Korean Patients with Cirrhosis.

: The Child-Pugh (CP) score and Model for End-Stage Liver Disease (MELD) are classical systems for predicting mortality in patients with liver cirrhosis (LC). The MELD-GFR assessment in liver disease-sodium (MELD-GRAIL-Na) was designed to better reflect renal function and, therefore, provide better mortality predictions. This study aimed to compare the prediction accuracy of MELD-GRAIL-Na compared to CP and MELD in predicting short-term (1- and 3-month) mortality in Korean patients.

Adenosine derivatives from Cordyceps exert antitumor effects against ovarian cancer cells through ENT1-mediated transport, induction of AMPK signaling, and consequent autophagic cell death.

Cordyceps militaris is rich in adenosine derivatives, including 3'-deoxyadenosine, also known as cordycepin. It has been reported for antitumor effects, but its underlying molecular mechanism has yet to be elucidated. We investigated how adenosine derivatives exerted antitumor effects against ovarian cancer using human ovarian cancer cells and a xenograft mouse model.

Nanoscale fluorescence imaging of biological ultrastructure via molecular anchoring and physical expansion.

Nanoscale imaging of biological samples can provide rich morphological and mechanistic information about biological functions and dysfunctions at the subcellular and molecular level. Expansion microscopy (ExM) is a recently developed nanoscale fluorescence imaging method that takes advantage of physical enlargement of biological samples. In ExM, preserved cells and tissues are embedded in a swellable hydrogel, to which the molecules and fluorescent tags in the samples are anchored.

The interplay between partisanship, risk perception, and mental distress during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.

COVID-19 is a profoundly partisan issue in the U.S., with increasing polarization of the Republicans' and Democrats' responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and their precautionary actions to reduce virus transmission.

Perceived neighborhood disorder and psychological distress among Latino adults in the United States: Considering spousal/partner relationship.

It has been well-established that neighborhood disorder and disadvantage are detrimental to mental health and psychological well-being. There has been growing research interest in minority stress issues, however, less is known about how perceived neighborhood disorder matters for psychological well-being among Latino adults in the United States. Analyzing data from National Latino Asian American Study, 2002-2003, the present study investigates the relationships among perceived neighborhood disorder, spousal/partner relationships (i.

Evaluation of equine coronavirus fecal shedding among hospitalized horses.

Background: Currently, diagnosis of equine coronavirus (ECoV) relies on the exclusion of other infectious causes of enteric disease along with molecular detection of ECoV in feces or tissue. Although this approach is complete, it is costly and may not always be achievable.

Objective: We hypothesized that the overall fecal shedding of ECoV in hospitalized horses is low.

Body Mass Index, Perceived Weight, and Self-Rated Health among South Korean Adults: Conjoint Effect on Health?

The prevalence of overweight and obesity is rising rapidly in many countries, including South Korea. The present study examined the association between weight perception and self-rated health, independent of body weight status, as well as how weight status and perceived weight status intersect and relate to the self-rated health among adults in South Korea. Data were from 722 men and 800 women in 2010 Korean General Social Survey.

Buckling-Based Non-Linear Mechanical Sensor.

Mechanical sensors provide core keys for high-end research in quantitative understanding of fundamental phenomena and practical applications such as the force or pressure sensor, accelerometer and gyroscope. In particular, in situ sensitive and reliable detection is essential for measurements of the mechanical vibration and displacement forces in inertial sensors or seismometers. However, enhancing sensitivity, reducing response time and equipping sensors with a measurement capability of bidirectional mechanical perturbations remains challenging.

Adhesive force measurement of steady-state water nano-meniscus: Effective surface tension at nanoscale.

When the surface of water is curved at nanoscale as a bubble, droplet and meniscus, its surface tension is expected to be smaller than that of planar interface, which still awaits experimental studies. Here, we report static and dynamic force spectroscopy that measures the capillary force of a single nanoscale water meniscus at constant curvature condition. Based on the Young-Laplace equation, the results are used to obtain the effective surface tension (ST) of the meniscus, which decreases to less than 20% of the bulk value at the radius-of-curvature (ROC) below 25 nm, while indicating the bulk behaviour above ~130 nm ROC.

Bifurcation-enhanced ultrahigh sensitivity of a buckled cantilever.

Buckling, first introduced by Euler in 1744 [Euler L (1744) 24:231], a sudden mechanical sideways deflection of a structural member under compressive stress, represents a bifurcation in the solution to the equations of static equilibrium. Although it has been investigated in diverse research areas, such a common nonlinear phenomenon may be useful to devise a unique mechanical sensor that addresses the still-challenging features, such as the enhanced sensitivity and polarization-dependent detection capability. We demonstrate the bifurcation-enhanced sensitive measurement of mechanical vibrations using the nonlinear buckled cantilever tip in ambient conditions.

Neuronal Glutamate Transporters Control Dopaminergic Signaling and Compulsive Behaviors.

There is an ongoing debate on the contribution of the neuronal glutamate transporter EAAC1 to the onset of compulsive behaviors. Here, we used behavioral, electrophysiological, molecular, and viral approaches in male and female mice to identify the molecular and cellular mechanisms by which EAAC1 controls the execution of repeated motor behaviors. Our findings show that, in the striatum, a brain region implicated with movement execution, EAAC1 limits group I metabotropic glutamate receptor (mGluRI) activation, facilitates D1 dopamine receptor (D1R) expression, and ensures long-term synaptic plasticity.