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Objectives: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has profoundly impacted residency and fellowship training and education. However, how and to what extent the COVID-19 pandemic in Lebanon compromised the daily involvement of trainees on the clinical and ethical levels is currently unknown, which this study will shed light on., Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional survey (30 questions) targeting medical residents delivering healthcare services in Lebanon. Residents from different specialties were included in the study to assess the effect of the pandemic on their education and the ethical obstacles they faced when dealing with patients., Results: A total of 221 postgraduate medical students participated in our study. Results showed that about half of the residents (52.1%) were only able to do a basic physical examination rather than a full examination as a mandatory requirement in the residency curriculum. The majority (60%) agreed that the doctor-patient relationship is contravened. In addition, almost all residents suffered from fear and emotional distress that affected their education (83.7%)., Conclusion: The findings of this study identify the effect of COVID-19 on residents' training, which affects treatment outcomes and greatly impacts the mental well-being of both healthcare workers and patients., Competing Interests: The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article., (© The Author(s) 2024.)

Phagocytosis "offense" is a crucial process to protect the organism from diseases and the effects of foreign particles. Insects rely on the innate immune system and thus any hindrance to phagocytosis may greatly affect their resistance to diseases and response to pathogens. The European honeybee, a valuable species due to its economic and environmental contribution, is being challenged by colony collapse disorder leading to its decline. Exposure to multiple factors including pesticides like imidacloprid and amitraz may negatively alter their immune response and ultimately make them more susceptible to diseases. In this study, we compare the effect of different concentrations and mixtures of imidacloprid and amitraz with different concentrations of the immune stimulant, zymosan A. Results show that imidacloprid and amitraz have a synergistic negative effect on phagocytosis. The lowered phagocytosis induces significantly higher hemocyte viability suggesting a negatively correlated protective mechanism "defense" from pesticide-associated damage but may not be protective from pathogens., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that there research was conducted in the absence of any conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Brownfields are a widespread problem in the world. The poor quality of these soils and the potential presence of contaminants can pose a significant threat to plant establishment and growth. However, it may be possible to improve their establishment with an appropriate agricultural practice. In this paper, the effects of two common planting strategies, seeding and transplanting, on the establishment and growth of the hyperaccumulator species Noccaea caerulescens and on its phytoextraction capacity were investigated. A field experiment was conducted by direct sowing of N. caerulescens seeds on a plot of contaminated Technosols in Jeandelaincourt, France. At the same time, seeds were sown on potting soil under controlled conditions. One month later, the seedlings were transplanted to the field. One year later, the results showed that transplanting improved the establishment and growth of N. caerulescens. This was due to a decrease in soil pH in the rhizosphere, which subsequently increased nutrient availability. This change in rhizosphere properties also appeared to be the key that improved microbial activities in the rhizosphere soil of transplanted plants. The observed improvement in both rhizosphere nutrient availability and microbial activities, in turn, increased auxin concentrations in the rhizosphere and consequently a more developed root system was observed in the transplanted plants. Furthermore, the Cd and Zn phytoextraction yield of transplanted plants is 2.5 and 5 times higher, respectively, than that of sown plants. In conclusion, N. caerulescens transplantation on contaminated sites seems to be an adequate strategy to improve plant growth and enhance trace metal phytoextraction., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Background: The immune system of honeybees includes multiple pathways that may be affected by pesticide exposure decreasing the immune competencies of bees and increasing their susceptibility to diseases like the fungal Nosema spp. infection, which is detected in collapsed colonies., Methods: To better understand the effect of the co-presence of multiple pesticides that interact with bees like imidacloprid and amitraz, we evaluated the expression of immune-related genes in honeybee hemocytes., Results: Imidacloprid, amitraz, and the immune activator, zymosan A, mainly affect the gene expression in the Toll pathway., Discussion: Imidacloprid, amitraz, and zymosan A have a synergistic or an antagonistic relationship on gene expression depending on the level of immune signaling. The presence of multiple risk factors like pesticides and pathogens requires the assessment of their complex interaction, which has differential effects on the innate immunity of honeybees as seen in this study., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Sukkar, Kanso, Laval-Gilly and Falla-Angel.)

Invertebrates have a diverse immune system that responds differently to stressors such as pesticides and pathogens, which leads to different degrees of susceptibility. Honeybees are facing a phenomenon called colony collapse disorder which is attributed to several factors including pesticides and pathogens. We applied an in vitro approach to assess the response of immune-activated hemocytes from Apis mellifera , Drosophila melanogaster and Mamestra brassicae after exposure to imidacloprid and amitraz. Hemocytes were exposed to the pesticides in single and co-exposures using zymosan A for immune activation. We measured the effect of these exposures on cell viability, nitric oxide (NO) production from 15 to 120 min and on extracellular hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ) production after 3 h to assess potential alterations in the oxidative response. Our results indicate that NO and H 2 O 2 production is more altered in honeybee hemocytes compared to D. melanogaster and M. brassicae cell lines. There is also a differential production at different time points after pesticide exposure between these insect species as contrasting effects were evident with the oxidative responses in hemocytes. The results imply that imidacloprid and amitraz act differently on the immune response among insect orders and may render honeybee colonies more susceptible to infection and pests., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Cross-modal associations refer to non-arbitrary associations of features across sensory modalities. Such associations have been observed between many different sensory features. One association that has rarely been studied so far is between touch and color. In this study, participants were asked to match tactile and haptic adjectives to color samples shown individually on a screen. They could select one to 11 tactile and haptic terms, presented in 11 pairs of opposed adjectives. The results showed a regular pattern in the way tactile and haptic terms were matched to color. Our results further revealed that the colors to which tactile and haptic terms were matched did not fall within the boundaries of color lexical categories, suggesting that the associations were not based on lexicon--despite the frequent occurrence of linguistic expressions such as 'soft pink', not all colors called 'pink' were matched to 'soft'. In contrast with one recent study, the distribution of tactile and haptic terms across the Munsell array suggests that along with brightness and chroma, hue was also relevant to participants' responses. Specifically in the case of hue, several opposed adjectives were relatively well matched to opposed colors, along the orthogonal Yellow/Blue and Red/Green axes, which are suggested to structure the space of hue experience. Possible accounts of these results are considered.

The objective of the present study was to explore cross-modal associations between color and tactile sensation while using haptically rendered virtual stimuli with substance properties of roughness/smoothness, hardness/softness, heaviness/lightness, elasticity/inelasticity, and adhesiveness/nonadhesiveness. The stimuli with the indicated properties were rendered with the aid of SensAble PHANTOM OMNI® haptic device. The experimental setup required the participants to use exploratory procedures typical to real object interaction, and select a color from the HSV color space that matched the experienced sensation. The findings of our investigation reveal systematic mapping between color characteristics and intensity of the haptic stimuli. Qualitatively different haptic sensations, however, produced relatively similar patterns of cross-modal associations.