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Global environmental changes are associated with warmer average temperatures and more extreme weather events, potentially affecting wildlife population dynamics by altering demographic processes. Extreme weather events can reduce food resources and survival in all seasons of the year. Estimates of season-specific survival probabilities are therefore crucial to understand the moderating effect of extreme events on annual mortality. Here, we analysed survival probabilities of 307 radio-tracked juvenile little owls ( Athene noctua ) over two-week periods from fledging to their first breeding attempt in the following spring to assess the contribution of extreme weather events. Survival probabilities were typically lowest during the first weeks after fledging in summer but were moderated by seasonal extremes in winter. The duration of snow cover in winter had a strong negative effect on survival probability, while being food supplemented during the nestling stage increased survival during the first weeks after fledging in summer and ultimately led to a larger proportion of birds surviving the first year. Overall annual survival probability over the first year varied by 34.3% between 0.117 (95% credible interval 0.052-0.223) and 0.178 (0.097-0.293) depending on the severity of the winter, and was as high as 0.233 (0.127-0.373) for food-supplemented fledglings. In years with mild winters, the season with the lowest survival was the summer post-fledging period (0.508; 0.428-0.594), but in years with extensive snow cover the winter was the season with the lowest survival (0.481; 0.337-0.626). We therefore show that extreme weather events occurring in a particular season reduced the proportion of first-year survivors. Increasing extreme weather events can moderate seasonal survival probability through altering food supply of juvenile little owls either during the nestling period or in winter, with similarly large effects on annual survival and the viability of populations., Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2024 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Study Design: Systematic review., Objective: The aim of this study was to conduct a systematic overview of the pathogenesis and the treatment options of combined odontoid and atlas fractures in geriatric patients., Methods: This review is based on articles retrieved by a systematic search in the PubMed and Web of Science databases for articles published until February 2021 dealing with combination fractures of C1 and C2 in geriatric patients., Results: Altogether, 438 articles were retrieved from the literature search. A total of 430 articles were excluded. The remaining eight original articles were included in this systematic review depicting the topics pathogenesis, non-operative treatment, posterior approach, and anterior approach. The overall level of evidence of the studies is low., Conclusion: Combined odontoid and atlas fractures in the geriatric population are commonly caused by simple falls and seem to be associated with atlanto-odontoid osteoarthritis. Non-operative treatment with a cervical orthosis is a feasible treatment option in the majority of patients with stable C2 fractures. In case of surgery posterior C1 and C 2 stabilization and anterior triple or quadruple screw fixation are possible techniques. Some patients may also deserve an occipito-cervical fusion. A possible treatment algorithm is proposed.

Purpose: Intraoperative 3D imaging has become a valued tool in assessing the quality of reduction and implant placement in orthopedic trauma surgery. In our institution, 3D imaging is used routinely since 2001. To evaluate the intraoperative findings and consequences of this technique, intraoperative revision rates in cases with 3D imaging were analyzed., Methods: All operative procedures carried out with intraoperative 3D imaging between August 2001 and December 2016 were included. The scans were assessed intraoperatively and documented thereafter. In case of malreduction or misplaced implants, an immediate revision was performed. The number of scans per case as well as the findings and consequences drawn regarding the anatomical region were analyzed., Results: 4721 cases with 7201 3D scans were included in this study. The most common anatomical regions were the ankle (22.3%), the calcaneus (14.8%) and the tibial head (9.5%). In 19.1% of all cases, an intraoperative revision was performed. The highest revision rates were found with 36.0% in calcaneal fractures, 24.8% in fractures of the tibial plateau, 22.3% in injuries of the ankle. In 52.0% of revisions, the reduction was improved regarding intra-articular steps or joint congruency. In 30.5% an implant was corrected., Conclusion: Intraoperative revision due to results of 3D imaging was performed in almost one-fifth of cases. This illustrates the improved possibilities to detect malreduction and implant misplacements intraoperatively and thus the abilities to improve surgical outcome., Level of Evidence: III., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

Background: Serologic analysis is an important tool towards assessing the humoral response to COVID-19 infection and vaccination. Numerous serologic tests and platforms are currently available to support this line of testing. Two broad antibody testing categories are point-of-care lateral flow immunoassays and semi-quantitative immunoassays performed in clinical laboratories, which typically require blood collected from a finger-stick and a standard venipuncture blood draw, respectively. This study evaluated the use of dried blood spot (DBS) collections as a sample source for COVID-19 antibody testing using an automated clinical laboratory test system., Methods: Two hundred and ninety-four participants in the BLAST COVID-19 seroprevalence study (NCT04349202) were recruited at the time of a scheduled blood draw to have an additional sample taken via finger stick as a DBS collection. Using the EUROIMMUN assay to assess SARS-CoV-2 anti-spike IgG status, DBS specimens were tested on 7, 14, 21, and 28 days post- collection and compared to the reference serum sample obtained from a blood draw for the BLAST COVID-19 study., Results: SARS-CoV-2 anti-spike IgG status from DBS collections demonstrated high concordance with serum across all time points (7-28 days). However, the semi-quantitative value from DBS collections was lower on average than that from serum, resulting in increased uncertainty around the equivocal-to-positive analytical decision point., Conclusions: DBS collections can be substituted for venipuncture when assaying for COVID-19 IgG antibody, with samples being stable for at least 28 days at room temperature. Finger-stick sampling can therefore be advantageous for testing large populations for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies without the need for phlebotomists or immediate processing of samples. We have high confidence in serostaus determination from DBS collections, although the reduced semi-quantitative value may cause some low-level positives to fall into the equivocal or even negative range., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest Matthew Sims reports grants as Site Principal Investigator from Aridis Pharmaceuticals Inc., Cidara Therapeutics, ContraFect, Cubist Pharmaceuticals Inc. (now Merck), Curetis Ag, Curetis GmBM, CutisPharma (Advisory Board), DiaSorin Molecular LLC, Epigenomics Inc. (Site Sub-Investigator), EUROIMMUN US, Finch Therapeutics, Genentech USA Inc., Gilead Sciences, IBIS Biosystems, Iterum Therapeutics, Janssen Research and Development, LLC, Kinevant Sciences GmBH, Leonard-Meron Biosciences, Merck, Nabriva Therapeutics, NeuMoDx Molecular, Paratek Pharmaceuticals (Advisory Board), Pfizer, Prenosis, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Sanofi Pasteur Inc., Seres Therapeutics Inc., Shire (Site Sub-investigator), and Summit Therapeutics. Gabriel Maine reports grants from EUROIMMUN, during the conduct of the study. Kevin Heinrich reports being a co-founder and equity holder of Quire Inc. The company was contracted by Beaumont to perform data analysis Hans Keil reports that he worked for PerkinElmer, Inc. from September 2001 to January 2020. PerkinElmer is the parent company of EUROIMMUN. Beaumont Health used EUROIMMUN instrumentation and reagents in this study. Ramin Homayouni reports being a co-founder, equity holder and serves on the Board of Directors of Quire Inc. and has received consulting fees from Quire Inc. outside the submitted work. All other authors have no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Objectives: Because health care personnel (HCP) are potentially at increased risk of contracting COVID-19, high vaccination rates in this population are essential. The objective of this study was to assess vaccination status, barriers to vaccination, reasons for vaccine acceptance, and concerns about COVID-19 vaccination among HCP., Methods: We conducted an anonymous online survey at a large US health care system from April 9 through May 4, 2021, to assess COVID-19 vaccination status and endorsement of reasons for acceptance and concerns related to vaccination (based on selections from a provided list)., Results: A total of 4603 HCP (12.2% response rate) completed the survey, 3947 (85.7%) had received at least 1 dose of a COVID-19 vaccine at the time of the survey, and 550 (11.9%) reported no plans to receive the vaccine. Unvaccinated HCP were 30 times more likely than vaccinated HCP to endorse religious or personal beliefs as a vaccine concern (odds ratio = 30.95; 95% CI, 21.06-45.48) and 15 times more likely to believe that personal vaccination is not needed if enough others are vaccinated (odds ratio = 14.99; 95% CI, 10.84-20.72). The more reasons endorsed for vaccination (ß = 0.60; P < .001), the higher the likelihood of having received the vaccine. However, the number of concerns about COVID-19 vaccine was not related to vaccination status (ß = 1.01; P = .64)., Conclusions: Our findings suggest that reasons for vaccination acceptance and concerns about vaccination need to be considered to better understand behavioral choices related to COVID-19 vaccination among HCP, because these beliefs may affect vaccination advocacy, responses to vaccine mandates, and promotion of COVID-19 vaccine boosters.

Background: Despite a substantial improvement in the operative treatment of tibial plateau fractures, the surgical procedure remains controversial and is generally challenging, as patients may develop postoperative arthritis and functional impairment of the knee joint., Hypothesis: In the surgical treatment of tibial plateau fractures the intraoperative reposition quality has the greatest influence on the postoperative outcome, whereby misalignments of≥2mm lead to a worse result., Patients and Methods: Forty-one patients with tibial plateau fractures were postoperatively examined. The operative treatment was performed under reduction control using an intraoperative 3D C-arm. The follow-up collective was divided into two groups depending on the intraoperative reduction result. The postoperative results were then evaluated using the following parameters: Lysholm score, Rasmussen score, Tegner score, SF-36 score, range of motion and pain level., Results: Group 1 (articular surface incongruencies<2mm) tended to achieve a better result in all scores than group 2 (articular surface incongruencies≥2mm), in the Lysholm score (p=0.039), in the comparison of the range of motion (p=0.012) and the pain level (p=0.039) this was significant. Group 1 achieved an average of 90.71 points (group 2: 78.74) in the Lysholm score. The average range of motion of the knee joint was 138.93° in group 1 (group 2: 127.78°). The average value of the current pain level in group 1 was 1.14 (group 2: 2.63)., Discussion: Both study groups achieved a very good result compared to the available literature. It appears that reduction quality - which can be analyzed with intraoperative 3D imaging - plays the most important role in postoperative quality of life and functional outcome. Intraoperative adjustments of the reduction should therefore be performed on joint surface irregularities with a size above 2mm., Level of Evidence: III; retrospective case control study., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.)

Background: When using mobile 3D C-arms, impairments in image quality occur due to artefacts caused by metal implants as well as to the limited field of view. To avoid these restrictions, special computed tomography devices were designed, in order to improve image quality and to meet requirements for intraoperative usage., Objectives: To analyse practicability and benefits of a mobile intraoperative CT device (Airo, Brainlab, Munich, Germany) on the basis of several parameters that were obtained during a 40-month period., Materials and Methods: All procedures that were performed with usage of intraoperative CT between January 2017 and April 2020 were analysed with respect to anatomical region, count of scans, duration of scans, consequences drawn from the scans and use of navigation., Results: 354 CT-scans were performed in 171 patients (mean 2.07 [1 - 6] scans per procedure). 47.81% of the procedures were spinal, 52.19% affected the pelvis. 83% of the procedures were navigated. In 22% of patients, improvement in implant placement or reduction was achieved; in most patients (55%), a guidewire for pedicle screws was corrected. The mean scan duration was 10.33 s (3.54 - 21.72)., Conclusions: Use of intraoperative CT was reliable and helpful. Integration in OR standards requires more effort than mobile 3D C-arms. Image quality was outstanding for intraoperative conditions and allowed proper assessment of implant placement and reduction in all cases. Due to the high financial outlay of the system and the good image quality of 3D C-arms in the extremities, we assume that this procedure can be applied in intraoperative CT in traumatological cases in spinal and pelvic surgery in high-level trauma centres., Competing Interests: One of the authors received lecture fees from Brainlab AG./Einer der Autoren hat Vortragshonorare der Brainlab AG erhalten., (Thieme. All rights reserved.)

To identify psychological antecedents of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among healthcare personnel (HCP). We surveyed 4603 HCP to assess psychological antecedents of their vaccination decisions (the '5 Cs') for vaccines in general and for COVID-19 vaccines. Most HCP accept vaccines, but many expressed hesitancy about COVID-19 vaccines for the psychological antecedents of vaccination: confidence (vaccines are effective), complacency (vaccines are unnecessary), constraints (difficult to access), calculation (risks/benefits), collective responsibility (need for vaccination when others vaccinate). HCP who were hesitant only about COVID-19 vaccines differed from HCP who were consistently hesitant: those with lower confidence were more likely to be younger and women, higher constraints were more likely to have clinical positions, higher complacency were more likely to have recently cared for COVID-19 patients, and lesser collective responsibility were more likely to be non-white. These results can inform interventions to encourage uptake of COVID-19 vaccines in HCP., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Purpose: Fiducial markers are commonly used in navigation-assisted minimally invasive spine surgery and they help transfer image coordinates into real-world coordinates. In practice, these markers might be located outside the field-of-view (FOV) of C-arm cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) systems used in intraoperative surgeries, due to the limited detector sizes. As a consequence, reconstructed markers in CBCT volumes suffer from artifacts and have distorted shapes, which sets an obstacle for navigation., Methods: In this work, we propose two fiducial marker detection methods: direct detection from distorted markers (direct method) and detection after marker recovery (recovery method). For direct detection from distorted markers in reconstructed volumes, an efficient automatic marker detection method using two neural networks and a conventional circle detection algorithm is proposed. For marker recovery, a task-specific data preparation strategy is proposed to recover markers from severely truncated data. Afterwards, a conventional marker detection algorithm is applied for position detection. The networks in both methods are trained based on simulated data. For the direct method, 6800 images and 10 000 images are generated, respectively, to train the U-Net and ResNet50. For the recovery method, the training set includes 1360 images for FBPConvNet and Pix2pixGAN. The simulated data set with 166 markers and four cadaver cases with real fiducials are used for evaluation., Results: The two methods are evaluated on simulated data and real cadaver data. The direct method achieves 100% detection rates within 1 mm detection error on simulated data with normal truncation and simulated data with heavier noise, but only detect 94.6% markers in extremely severe truncation case. The recovery method detects all the markers successfully in three test data sets and around 95% markers are detected within 0.5 mm error. For real cadaver data, both methods achieve 100% marker detection rates with mean registration error below 0.2 mm., Conclusions: Our experiments demonstrate that the direct method is capable of detecting distorted markers accurately and the recovery method with the task-specific data preparation strategy has high robustness and generalizability on various data sets. The task-specific data preparation is able to reconstruct structures of interest outside the FOV from severely truncated data better than conventional data preparation., (© 2022 The Authors. Medical Physics published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Association of Physicists in Medicine.)

The Si-H···Se contact in 1-mesitylselanyl-8-(dimethylsilyl)naphthalene ( 1 ), which exhibits the spatial arrangement of a δ-agostic interaction from geometric considerations, was investigated. Is this just enforced by close 1,8-proximity or is this a favorable interaction? Charge density studies are best suited to investigate the exact origin of the interaction and to quantify the properties. Hence, they are most elucidating. High-resolution X-ray diffraction data of 1 were collected, and a multipole refinement followed by a topological analysis using Bader's quantum theory of atoms in molecules was employed. The resulting bond properties were set in relation to high-level computational parameters. The comparison to Si-H···[M] agostics, hydride bonding, chalcogen bonds, and charge-inverted hydrogen bonds qualified the Si-H···Se noncovalent interaction to be best classified as a chalcogen-hydride bond.

Although the costs of reproduction are predicted to vary with the quality of the breeding habitat thereby affecting population dynamics and life-history trade-offs, empirical evidence for this pattern remains sparse and equivocal. Costs of reproduction can operate through immediate ecological mechanisms or through delayed intrinsic mechanisms. Ignoring these separate pathways might hinder the identification of costs and the understanding of their consequences. We experimentally investigated the survival costs of reproduction for adult little owls ( Athene noctua ) within a gradient of habitat quality. We supplemented food to nestlings, thereby relieving the parents' effort for brood provisioning. We used radio-tracking and Bayesian multistate modeling based on marked recapture and dead recovery to estimate survival rates of adult little owls across the year as a function of food supplementation and habitat characteristics. Food supplementation to nestlings during the breeding season increased parental survival not only during the breeding season but also during the rest of the year. Thus, the low survival of parents of unfed broods likely represents both, strong ecological and strong intrinsic costs of reproduction. However, while immediate ecological costs occurred also in high-quality habitats, intrinsic costs carrying over to the post-breeding period occurred only in low-quality habitats. Our results suggest that immediate costs resulting from ecological mechanisms such as predation, are high also in territories of high habitat quality. Long-term costs resulting from intrinsic trade-offs, however, are only paid in low-quality habitats. Consequently, differential effects of habitat quality on immediate ecological and delayed intrinsic mechanisms can mask the increase of costs of reproduction in low-quality breeding habitats. Intrinsic costs may represent an underrated mechanism of habitat quality affecting adult survival rate thereby considerably accelerating population decline in degrading habitats. This study therefore highlights the need for a long-term perspective to fully assess the costs of reproduction and the role of habitat quality in modifying these costs., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest., (© 2022 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)