Prevalence and risk factors of urinary tract infection in kidney recipients: a meta-analysis study.

BACKGROUND: A kidney recipient's urinary tract infection (UTI) can result in infectious problems and be a risk factor for less successful transplant outcomes. UTI risk factors are still controversial. The present study aimed to investigate the prevalence of UTI and its association with risk factors in kidney recipients. METHOD: Twenty-six papers published between 2005 and 2022 were retrieved using keywords and searching Medlib, ScienceDirect, PubMed, and other databases. If possible, the pooled prevalence of UTI in kidney recipients and odds ratio (OR) with a 95% confidence interval for each risk factor were calculated. The data were analyzed using the random effects model in R and Stata 14. RESULTS: The total sample size was 72,600, with an average age of 48.7 years. The pooled prevalence of UTI was 35% (95% CI, 30-40%). The estimated risk factors for UTI were female (OR = 3.13; 95%CI: 2.35-4.17), older age (OR = 1.03; 95%CI: 1-1.05), history of UTI (OR = 1.31; 95%CI) CI: 1.05-1.63), receiving a kidney from a deceased donor (OR = 1.59; 95%CI: 1.23-2.35), long-term use of an indwelling catheter (OR = 3.03; 95%CI: 1.59-6.59), a ureteral stent (OR = 1.54; 95%CI: 1.16-2.06), diabetes (OR = 1.17; 95%CI: 0.97-1.41), hypertension (OR = 1.6; 95%CI: 1.26-2.28), acute rejection process (OR = 2.22; 95%CI: 1.45-3.4), and abnormal urinary tract anatomy (OR = 2.87; 95%CI 1.44-5.74). CONCLUSION: This meta-analysis revealed that UTIs are a significant problem in kidney recipients. Factors such as female sex, old age, history of UTIs, deceased donor, long-term use of an indwelling catheter, diabetes, acute rejection process, use of ureteral stent, abnormal urinary tract anatomy, and hypertension were related to an increased risk of UTIs in kidney recipients.

Coalitions and Their Negative Consequences: An Examination in Service Failure-Recovery Situations.

The social nature of customer experiences creates complex and potentially detrimental dynamics in failure situations, such as when other customers side with the complainer or the firm. The present research is the first to analyze such coalitions and their consequences. We conceptualize a triad composed of a complainer, a service employee, and one or multiple others as a third actor. A field study of consumer complaints on social media shows that coalitions occur in 32% of cases, negatively shifting the affective tone of an online conversation from approximately neutral to negative. Both third actor-complainer and third actor-service employee coalitions independently deteriorate the affective tone, their individual effects are not additive, and the third actor-complainer coalition exerts the larger impact of both coalitions. Two experiments reveal that complainers feel betrayed by the third actor when this actor sides with the service employee (vs. the complainer), which strengthens complainers' satisfaction with taking steps as a recovery effort by the firm and weakens satisfaction with an offered apology. This research provides managerial insights into the practical significance of coalition effects, how coalitions impair firm response effectiveness, and under which conditions different responses sustain their effectiveness. It also presents several avenues for future research.

The potential role of protein disulfide isomerases (PDIs) during parasitic infections: a focus on Leishmania spp.

Leishmaniasis is a group of vector-borne diseases caused by intracellular protozoan parasites belonging to the genus Leishmania. Leishmania parasites can employ different and numerous sophisticated strategies, including modulating host proteins, cell signaling, and cell responses by parasite proteins, to change the infected host conditions to favor the parasite persistence and induce pathogenesis. In this sense, protein disulfide isomerases (PDIs) have been described as crucial proteins that can be modulated during leishmaniasis and affect the pathogenesis process. The effect of modulated PDIs can be investigated in both aspects, parasite PDIs and infected host cell PDIs, during infection. The information concerning PDIs is not sufficient in parasitology; however, this study aimed to provide data regarding the biological functions of such crucial proteins in parasites with a focus on Leishmania spp. and their relevant effects on the pathogenesis process. Although there are no clinical trial vaccines and therapeutic approaches, highlighting this information might be fruitful for the development of novel strategies based on PDIs for the management of parasitic diseases, especially leishmaniasis.

Your Personal Motivator is with You: A Systematic Review of Mobile Phone Applications Aiming at Increasing Physical Activity.

BACKGROUND: Literature shows mixed evidence about the power of mobile phone applications to foster physical activity. A systematic integration that offers insights into which mobile phone application techniques can or cannot foster physical activity is lacking, as is a theoretical integration of current research. OBJECTIVES: We performed a systematic review guided by a theoretical framework focusing on effects that certain mobile phone application techniques have on physical activity, to improve our understanding of what techniques are more or less effective. METHODS: We identified articles by searching EBSCO Business Source Complete, Science Direct, PsycINFO, Springer, PLoS ONE, Taylor and Francis, IEEE, Social Science Citation Index, Science Citation Index Expanded, PUBMED, MEDLINE, and Google Scholar. We considered articles if (1) they referred to the use of mobile phone applications to promote physical activity; (2) their methodological approach allowed one to derive appropriate results (e.g., intervention-based approach, observational study); (3) they were published in peer-reviewed journals or conference proceedings; and (4) they were written in English. The literature search resulted in 41 usable studies. Meta-synthesis and vote counting were applied to analyze these studies. RESULTS: Based on the ratio of supportive versus non-supportive evidence in both the qualitative and the quantitative studies, we propose the following descending rank order for the effectiveness of application techniques to foster physical activity. This is tentative in nature because the current overall small body of literature made coming to definite conclusions difficult: (1) feedback, (2) goal setting and its sub-forms, (3) competition, social sharing with familiar users in both segregated and social network groups, and (4) social sharing with strangers in segregated groups, reward, and social sharing with strangers in social network groups. Rewards in particular provided mixed results, and social sharing with strangers in segregated and social network groups seemed rather ineffective but may work under special conditions that need to be identified in additional research. One limitation of our study was that our results are mostly derived from qualitative studies, since quantitative studies are underrepresented in the field. CONCLUSION: Several mobile phone application techniques were identified that have the potential to foster physical activity, whereas others were identified that are unlikely to increase physical activity. Major avenues for future research include more theoretical development and more quantitative studies, among others.