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The association between depressive symptomatology and endogenous testosterone levels is inconclusive. Large inter- and intra-individual testosterone differences suggest point measurements from saliva or serum to be inadequate to map basal testosterone concentrations highlighting the potential for long-term integrated testosterone levels from hair. Using data from a prospective cohort study, a total of 578 participants (74% female) provided complete data on depressive symptomatology, clinical features, and hair samples for quantification of testosterone concentrations at baseline. Available data of three annual follow-up examinations were used for longitudinal analyses. Correlation analysis showed in both, men and women, hair testosterone across all the four time points not to be significantly related to depressive symptoms. Examined clinical features were not associated with testosterone levels, except for having a current diagnosis of a psychological disorder, which was associated with reduced testosterone levels in men, but not in women. Acceptable model fit for an autoregressive cross-lagged panel analysis emerged only for the female subsample suggesting inverse cross-relations for the prediction of testosterone by depressive symptomatology and vice versa. Findings from this study add to the literature by showing no association between long-term integrated testosterone in hair and depressive symptomatology in men and women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carcinoid tumors may relapse after a long time span following initial diagnosis, and relapse might be clinically inapparent despite biochemical indications due to a low sensitivity of conventional methods. We present the case of a patient who had biochemical indication for hidden disease persistence for more than two decades. In 1978, a 39-year-old man underwent surgery for a carcinoid tumour of the ileum measuring 3.5 cm with multiple local lymph-node metastases. After surgery, however, serotonin- and urinary 5-hydroxy-indole-acetic-acid (5-HIAA) remained markedly elevated, and persisted over more than 20 years at levels between 600 and 950 ng/ml for serum serotonin (normal range 40-400 ng/ml) and 29-35 mg/24 h for 5-HIAA (normal range 2-9 mg/24 h). Despite this, regular radiological follow-up, including sonography and CT-scan, did not reveal the location of suspected malignancy until 1999, when the patient was re-admitted to our hospital for a hypertensive episode. CT-scanning of the abdomen showed a singular lesion within the liver, which was verified as recurrence of the carcinoid by fine needle biopsy. Somatostatin receptor scintigraphy using [sup 111]In-DTPA-D-Phe[sup 1]-Octreotide revealed a second lesion within the liver along with local recurrence at the anastomosis, which was verified by surgery. While the propensity for late relapse of ileal carcinoids has repeatedly been demonstrated, a case with biochemical signs of disease persistence over a time span of 21 years before final diagnosis is unusual. In addition, our case reflects the low sensitivity of conventional radiological evaluation for localization of carcinoid tumours as compared to somatostatin receptor scanning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recently developed viewpoint on the fundamentals of density-functional theory for finite interacting spin-lattice systems that centers around the notion of degeneracy regions is presented. It allows for an entirely geometrical description of the Hohenberg-Kohn theorem and v-representability. The phenomena receive exemplification by an Anderson impurity model and other small-lattice examples. The case of adiabatic change and the time-dependent setting are examined as well., (© 2024 Author(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).)

Against the background of Job Demands-Resources and Conservation of Resources theory and research on organizational communication, this prospective study among n = 312 employees explores the significant role of perceived information process quality (PIPQ) in enhancing employees' optimism during the COVID-19 pandemic. It thereby contributes to a deeper understanding of the factors influencing employee optimism in challenging contexts. In this study, PIPQ is defined by the availability of timely information, clarity, and consistency in the information provided. Results from latent change score modelling revealed that employees who experienced high PIPQ, particularly consistent information, reported feeling more optimistic about work-related aspects and also experienced spillover effects into their private lives. Notably, both consistency in information prior to the pandemic and increases in consistent information during the pandemic demonstrated this beneficial effect. Moreover, timely available information also positively influenced optimism, especially regarding work-related aspects. However, the study did not find evidence that clarity in information significantly affected optimism. In summary, the findings underscore the importance of accessible and consistent information as a vital resource for employees' ability to navigate crises., (© 2024 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Cell deformability of all major blood cell types is increased in depressive disorders (DD). Furthermore, impaired glucocorticoid secretion is associated with DD, as well as depressive symptoms in general and known to alter cell mechanical properties. Nevertheless, there are no longitudinal studies examining accumulated glucocorticoid output and depressive symptoms regarding cell deformability. The aim of the present study was to investigate, whether depressive symptoms predict cell deformability one year later and whether accumulated hair glucocorticoids mediate this relationship. In 136 individuals (n female = 100; M age = 46.72, SD = 11.28; age range = 20-65), depressive symptoms (PHQ-9) and hair glucocorticoids (cortisol and cortisone) were measured at time point one (T1), while one year later (T2) both depressive symptoms and hair glucocorticoids were reassessed. Additionally, cell deformability of peripheral blood cells was assessed at T2. Depression severity at T1 predicted higher cell deformability in monocytes and lymphocytes at T2. Accumulated hair cortisol and cortisone concentrations from T1 and T2 were not associated with higher cell deformability and further did not mediate the relationship between depressive symptoms and cell deformability. Elevated depressive symptomatology in a population based sample is longitudinally associated with higher immune cell deformability, while long-term integrated glucocorticoid levels seem not to be implicated in the underlying mechanism., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Emissions from internal combustion vehicles are currently not properly monitored throughout their life cycle. Remote emission sensing (RES) is a technology that can measure emissions under real driving conditions without contact. Current light extinction based RES systems are capable of providing emission factors for various gases, but lack accuracy for particulate matter (PM). Point Sampling (PS) is an extraction-based RES technique that can measure gases as well as various particle metrics such as black carbon or particle number. In this work, we evaluated the performance of a recently developed PS system and the state-of-the-art light extinction based remote sensing devices EDAR (HEAT) and ORSD (OPUS RSE) during co-location measurements. Validation measurements with portable emission measurement systems and emissions screening of several thousand cars in three European cities provide detailed insights into system's performance. Meteorological evaluations showed that the PS capture rate is strongly influenced by wind, but no other weather influences were found. Both light extinction based systems are unable to measure during rain. We found that all three systems tested were capable of screening NO x emissions from pre-Euro 6 diesel cars. Measurement results show the ability of the PS system to quantify high and low PM emitters equally well. The open-path RES systems (EDAR, ORSD) are capable of estimating PM emissions from pre-Euro 5 diesel cars. However, deficiencies of open-path RES systems are evident in the quantification of PM emissions from newer engine technologies (diesel Euro 5 and beyond) and from petrol cars. The PS system has a 2 to 5 times lower capture rate than open-path RES systems, but the PS measurement results are more accurate (more than 5 times for PM and more than 1.35 times for NO x ). The good accuracy of individual measurements makes PS a powerful tool for reliable high emitter identification., 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 © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The exchange-only virial relation due to Levy and Perdew is revisited. Invoking the adiabatic connection, we introduce the exchange energy in terms of the right-derivative of the universal density functional w.r.t. the coupling strength λ at λ = 0. This agrees with the Levy-Perdew definition of the exchange energy as a high-density limit of the full exchange-correlation energy. By relying on v-representability for a fixed density at varying coupling strength, we prove an exchange-only virial relation without an explicit local-exchange potential. Instead, the relation is in terms of a limit (λ ↘ 0) involving the exchange-correlation potential vxcλ, which exists by assumption of v-representability. On the other hand, a local-exchange potential vx is not warranted to exist as such a limit., (© 2024 Author(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).)

We propose exchanging the energy functionals in ground-state density-functional theory with physically equivalent exact force expressions as a new promising route toward approximations to the exchange-correlation potential and energy. In analogy to the usual energy-based procedure, we split the force difference between the interacting and auxiliary Kohn-Sham system into a Hartree, an exchange, and a correlation force. The corresponding scalar potential is obtained by solving a Poisson equation, while an additional transverse part of the force yields a vector potential. These vector potentials obey an exact constraint between the exchange and correlation contribution and can further be related to the atomic shell structure. Numerically, the force-based local-exchange potential and the corresponding exchange energy compare well with the numerically more involved optimized effective potential method. Overall, the force-based method has several benefits when compared to the usual energy-based approach and opens a route toward numerically inexpensive nonlocal and (in the time-dependent case) nonadiabatic approximations., (© 2024 Author(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).)