How do threat to life and state anxiety disturb the psychological functioning of Polish adults during coronavirus pandemic? / W jaki sposób poczucie zagrozenia zycia i lek jako stan zaklócaja psychiczne funkcjonowanie doroslych Polaków podczas pandemii koronawirusa?

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to answer the following question: how do threat to life and state anxiety predict psychological functioning in a coronavirus pandemic among Polish adults aged 18-65 years? METHODS: The web-based cross-sectional survey was applied to 1466 Polish respondents (1074 women, 73.3%) aged 18-65 years. They were divided into four age groups (18-25; 26-35; 36-45; 46-65). All participants completed: General Functioning Questionnaire (GFQ), State Anxiety Inventory (STAI-S), and General Sense of Threat to Life Scale (GSTLS). RESULTS: The youngest adults (aged 18-25 years) manifested significantly higher psychological distress, state anxiety, and a sense of threat to life compared to all the older participants. A sense of threat to life and state anxiety were significant predictors of psychological distress during the COVID-19 epidemic, where state anxiety mediates the relation between threat to life and psychological distress. CONCLUSIONS: The youngest participants constitute a risk group for psychological difficulties during the pandemic situation. The COVID-19 psychological distress could be significantly predicted by the two kinds of emotional state such as threat to life and anxiety.

Own body experience and parents' attitudes perceived retrospectively in patients with irritable bowel syndrome. / Doswiadczenie wlasnego ciala i retrospektywnie postrzegany postawy rodziców u pacjentów z zespolem jelita drazliwego.

OBJECTIVES: The objective of the study was to seek connections between mentalbody representations (body image, body schema and body sense) and parents' attitudes perceived retrospectively in patients with irritable bowel syndrome. METHODS: 184 adults aged 18 to 64 participated in the study, including patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS; N=63), patients with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD; N=60) and healthy respondents (N=61). Respondents took the Batteryof Tests of the Body Self Representations (B. Mirucka) and the Childhood Questionnaire (J. Hardt, U.T. Egle and A. Engfer). RESULTS: (1) IBS patients are characterized by lower representations of the body schema, body image and body sense compared to healthy people as well as lower organized body schema and body sense compared to IBD patients. (2) IBS patients in a similar way to IBS patients and healthy people describe the attitude of their mothers during childhood. In comparison to healthy people, IBS patients experience their fathers as significantly less loving. (3) In the group of IBS patients, there are significant relationships between the body sense and the retrospectively perceived attitude of love and control from both mothers and fathers. CONCLUSIONS: IBS patients are characterized by lower organization of mental body representation than healthy people and IBD patients. In the psychosocial functioning of IBS patients, the representation of body sense is particularly important. The peculiarity of the IBS patients'childhood relationship with their parents seems to be significant and requires further research.

On the methodology of the determination of charge concentration dependent mobility from organic field-effect transistor characteristics.

We developed a new methodology for determining charge concentration dependent mobility from organic field-effect transistor (OFET) characteristics, applicable for semiconducting polymers with structural and energy disorder. We show that basic formulae recommended by the "IEEE Standard for Test Methods for the Characterization of Organic Transistors and Materials" for the determination of the field-effect mobility as obtained from the slope ISD1/2vs. VSG (in the saturation regime) or from the transconductance dISD/dVSG (in the linear regime) are not suitable for materials with concentration dependent charge carrier mobility. We propose alternative expressions, which can be directly analytically derived from the drift-diffusion equation with the mobility explicitly dependent on the charge concentration. This methodology for mobility determination was used for analysis of the experimental data obtained for a poly(3-hexylthiophene)-based OFET with the bottom gate-bottom SD electrode configuration.