Emerging literature on the current COVID-19 crisis suggests that children may experience increased anxiety and depression as a result of the pandemic To prevent such school and mental health-related problems, there is a timely need to develop preventive strategies and interventions to address potential negative impacts of COVID-19 on children's mental health, especially in school settings Results from previous ***** clinical research indicate that art-based therapies, including mindfulness-based art therapy, have shown promise to increase children's well-being and reduce psychological distress
 
  The goal of the present pilot and feasibility study was to compare the impact of an emotion-based directed drawing intervention and a mandala drawing intervention, on mental health in elementary school children N = 22, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic Both interventions were group-based and delivered online and remotely A pilot study using a randomized cluster design was implemented to evaluate and comttings Further work incorporating larger sample sizes, longitudinal data and ensuring sufficient statistical power is warranted to evaluate the long-term impact of both interventions on children's mental health
 Overall, results from this pilot and feasibility study showed that both an emotion-based directed drawing intervention and a mandala drawing intervention may be beneficial to improve mental health in elementary school children, in the context of the current COVID-19 pandemic From a feasibility standpoint, results indicate that the implementation of both interventions online and remotely, through a videoconference platform, is feasible and adequate in school-based settings Further work incorporating larger sample sizes, longitudinal data and ensuring sufficient statistical power is warranted to evaluate the long-term impact of both interventions on children's mental health
  In adults with rheumatic diseases pulmonary complications are relevant contributors to morbidity and mortality In these patients diffusion capacity for CO DLCO is an established method to detect early pulmonary impairment Pilot studies using DLCO indicate that early functional pulmonary impairment is present even in children with rheumatic disease albeit not detectable by spirometry and without clinical signs of pulmonary disease Since the lung clearance index LCI is also a non-invasive, feasible and established method to detect early functional pulmonary impairment especially in children and because it requires less cooperation tidal breathing, we compared LCI versus DLCO forced breathing and breath-holding manoeuvre in children with rheumatic diseases
 
  Nineteen patients age 9-17 years with rheumatic disease and no clinical signs of pulmonary disease successfully completed LCI and DLCO during annual check-up In 2 patients LCI and DLCO were within physiological limits By contrast, elevated p of rheumatic diseases in children
  Predicting and monitoring recruitment in large, complex trials is essential to ensure appropriate resource management and budgeting In a novel partnership between clinical trial investigators of the South African Medical Research Council and industrial engineers from the Stellenbosch University Health Systems Engineering and Innovation Hub, we developed a trial recruitment tool TRT The objective of the tool is to serve as a computerised decisions-support system to aid the planning and management phases of the trial recruitment process
 
  The specific requirements of the TRT were determined in several workshops between the partners A Poisson process simulation model was formulated and incorporated in the TRT to predict the recruitment duration The assumptions underlying the model were made in consultation with the trial team at the start of the project and were deemed reasonable Real-world data extracted from a current cluster trial, Project MIND, based in 24 sites in South Africa was used to verify ta to predict future recruitment The broader project demonstrates the value of collaboration between clinicians and engineers to optimise their respective skillsets
 This TRT is an easy-to-use tool that assists in the management of the trial recruitment process  https//wwwselleckchemcom/products/bpv-hopichtml  The TRT has potential to expedite improved management of clinical trials by providing the appropriate information needed for the planning and monitoring of the trial recruitment phase This TRT extends prior tools describing historic recruitment only to using historic data to predict future recruitment The broader project demonstrates the value of collaboration between clinicians and engineers to optimise their respective skillsetsBetween 2014 and 2016, Switzerland's access to some of the EU funding was limited after a referendum against mass immigration was accepted and the country refused to sign the free movement accord to the EU's newest member, Croatia It is well documented that Switzerland has suffered from a drop in participation, funding and a decrease in consortium lead positions However, there is no account of the consequences on institutional level We therefore aimed at describing the immediate- and longer-term impact of the partial association status to the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute Swiss TPH and to identify key strategies for minimizing institutional damage during a limited access period to a key regional funding source A quantitative analysis of the institute's grants database, from 2007 to 2019, did not show any clear trends related to the partial association status of Switzerland for funding and projects awarded The qualitative outcomes changed along the timeline assessed; whereas in 2014 a ranged a large pool of potential funding sources internationally, resulting in relative resilience in terms of income lost
  Pragmatic trials often consist of cluster-randomized controlled trials C-RCTs, where staff of existing clinics or sites deliver interventions and randomization occurs at the site level Covariate-constrained randomization CCR methods are often recommended to minimize imbalance on important site characteristics across intervention and control arms because sizable imbalances can occur by chance in simple randomizations when the number of units to be randomized is relatively small CCR methods involve multiple random assignments initially, an assessment of balance achieved on site-level covariates from each randomization, and the final selection of an allocation that produces acceptable balance However, no clear consensus exists on how to assess imbalance or identify allocations with sufficient balance In this article, we describe an overall imbalance index I that is based on the mean of the absolute value of the standardized differences in means on the site characteristics
 
  We derive the theoretical distribution of I, then conduct simulation studies to examine its empirical properties under the varying covariate distributions and inter-correlations