University Of Silesia In Katowice Research Articles

His Bundle Pacing: Predicting Mortality and Major Complications in Mid-Term Follow-Up.

Introduction: His bundle pacing (HBP) is suitable for 80% of patients with any indication for permanent pacemaker implantation, with a clinical benefit compared to right ventricular pacing (RVP). Although complications and mortality related to RVP are widely reported in the literature, data on HBP are limited. This study aimed to analyze HBP complications and outcomes in the short-term (up to 30 days) and long-term (up to the following 24 months) follow-up (F/U). Materials and Methods: The study includes 373 patients aged ≥ 18, enrolled from October 2015 to May 2019 in a single-center HBP prospective registry conducted in the Department of Electrocardiology, Upper Silesian Medical Centre of the Medical University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland. Mortality and HBP complications were used as end-points: during hospitalization and up to 30 days (short-term F/U), and for each F/U point-six months, 12 months, and 24 months after the procedure (long-term F/U). Results: Successful HBP was achieved in 252 patients (68%), with an increasing success rate during consecutive years: 57% in 2015-2016 and 73% in 2017-2019. Complications were found in 8.4% of patients (21/252) in short-term F/U and 5.8% (13/224), 5.5% (11/201), and 6.9% (12/174) at six months, 12 months, and 24 months, respectively. There were no deaths during the first 30 days. However, 26 patients (10.3%) died within 24 months. A left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) ≤ 34% was the only independent predictor of all-cause mortality or any major complication in the 24-month F/U. Conclusions: This single-center study reported a low risk of mortality and complications associated with HBP at the short-term F/U. However, during the long-term F/U, we observed a higher but acceptable risk of major complications, with a lower LVEF being an independent predictor of the composite end-point of all-cause mortality or any major complication.

Ocena alfabetyzmu zdrowotnego studentów na podstawie kwestionariusza Health Literacy Questionnaire (HLQ) – badania wstępne

The World Health Organization defines health literacy as the cognitive and social skills that determine people’s motivation and ability to gain access to, understand, and use information in ways that promote and maintain good health. Health literacy is closely linked to health behavior, health inequalities, and overall quality of life. It is also highly connected with health socialization and education in the home and school environment. Considering the importance of this concept, this study aims to preliminary examine the university students’ health literacy based on the Health Literacy Questionnaire (HLQ). The research was conducted from March to May 2023 among students of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Silesia in Katowice and the Faculty of Educational Studies of Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań. Research results have shown that, in general, the health literacy of surveyed students was high. The respondents found actively taking care of their health the hardest task. Simultaneously, most of them declared receiving social support in health. Monitoring the level of health literacy is crucial for providing important information about the needs of various groups in health awareness and contributes to undertaking educational activities in this area.

Would you donate your body? Attitudes of students of nursing and physiotherapy towards body donation for educational and scientific purposes.

Human body is the most perfect atlas of human anatomy. Body donation after death is, next to donation of organs for the purpose of transplantation, another most altruistic act, which significantly influences the future of medicine, as regards teaching of anatomy and clinical disciplines. Because students are mainly the beneficiaries of corpse donations, it appears important to learn about their attitudes to this altruistic act. The purpose was to assess the awareness and attitudes of students of nursing and physiotherapy towards body donation for educational and scientific purposes. A total of 128 Polish students (110 women and 18 men) from the faculties of nursing and physiotherapy of the Medical University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland took part in the questionnaire study. The average age in respective groups was 19.94 ± 0.34 years of age in case of nursing and 19.93 ± 0.25 years of age in case of physiotherapy. The first part of the proprietary questionnaire concerned classes in body dissection conducted in prosectorium and their significance for teaching anatomy. The second part applied to the programme of Conscious Body Donation, attitudes towards the body in prosectorium and the approach to body donation for educational and scientific purposes. The results of the study indicate that students from both faculties are in favour of body donation after death for educational and scientific purposes. Unfortunately, only a small percentage of them expressed the willingness to become body donators. The main reasons for the reluctance to do so included psychological barrier and concern for the family. Most of students who responded to the questionnaire support the idea of body donation for educational and scientific purposes after death, yet they appear to be more willing to donate their organs for transplantation than their bodies for educational or scientific purposes after death. There are numerous factors which influence students' attitude to body donation. More emphasis should be put on educating students, which could contribute to changing their attitude toward that altruistic act, and in consequence may increase the number of donors in the future.

To study or Not to Study Online? Students’ Views on Distance Education During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Diary Study

Distance learning is a type of instruction between a teacher and students separated by a physical distance where communication takes place through mediated information encompassing one or more technological media. In other words, the instruction participants stay in different places, yet take part in the same learning activities sequenced, paced and controlled by the teacher using new technologies to facilitate both the student-teacher and student-student rapport. The aim of the paper is to gain insight into this kind of learning from the perspective of university students. The sample constituted 128 students of the English Philology at the University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland. The findings of a diary study exploring the subjects’ reports on their attitudes towards online studying at the time of the COVID-19 period shows how students’ view change with an increasing infection rate, and, in fact, present the advantages and disadvantages of education during the pandemic, be it a face-to-face or remote mode. In conclusion, the question of whether to study or not to study online seems to be difficult to answer unequivocally. Though, some suggestions are given on how to improve distance education at times of university closure and lack of full participation in the process of building the academic community and identity that have been ascribed to the university construed as an indestructible social system for ages (Sowa, 2009).

Factors Enhancing Students’ Views on Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now one of the most important and contemporary directions of development of science in an interdisciplinary context. The EU’s approach to artificial intelligence centres on excellence and trust, aiming to boost research and industrial capacity while ensuring safety and fundamental rights (A European approach to artificial intelligence). Strengthening the fostering excellence in AI will strengthen Europe’s potential to compete globally. Simultaneously not yet solved are a lot of challenges and issues. The problem raised in the article is to explore and analyse computer science and education students’ attitude to educational, social, and ethical aspects of AI implementation. The purpose is to discover and analyse computer science students and pedagogical attitude towards education, social-, and ethical aspects of AI implementation. Students of two faculties of the University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland, were asked to respond to a survey. They were mainly students of two specializations – Computer Science and Pedagogy. As many as 103 students have been surveyed. The Kruskal-Wallis tests were used for verification. The main issues studied were the students’ level of competence in AI, their awareness of AI applications in various areas of life and economy, and the importance of the AI field. The study also included the level of confidence towards AI and the level of anxiety towards AI. Various types of dependencies and connections between these aspects were investigated. The hypotheses were mostly confirmed. Finally, the article presents the discussion and main conclusions.

Scandinavia in Research on Slavic Wooden Architecture: Inspiration, Point of Reference and Part of Imagined Pasts

ABSTRACT Based on texts from art history and ethnology, this paper examines three aspects of Scandinavia’s role in studying the wooden architecture of the Slavs up to 1945. First, it is pointed out that Dahl’s book, published in 1837, gave the decisive impetus to this research tradition. Second, the article shows how the early works on Norwegian stave churches established them as a paradigm of wooden construction and thus as the primary reference for other monuments of this type. Third, attempts to use wooden architecture in incorporating Scandinavia and Slavs into the shared, imagined pasts are presented. These were undertaken mainly by German scholars trying to demonstrate the Germanic roots of Slavic building. Scandinavia played a role in these narratives as the source of the forms taken over by the Slavs or the residuum of the East Germanic artistic traditions influencing the Slavic peoples. In this way, Scandinavian culture, incorporated into the common Germanic heritage, was instrumentalised to legitimise German domination in Central Europe. 1 1 Publication co-financed by the funds granted under the Research Excellence Initiative of the University of Silesia in Katowice.

Nieznane protokoły posiedzeń podkomisji prawa o stosunkach z pokrewieństwa i opieki Komisji Kodyfikacyjnej Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej z 1939 roku (część III)

Lost Minutes of the Sittings of the Sub-commission on the Law on Kinship and Care Relationships of the Codification Commission of the Republic of Poland in 1939 (Part III) When Poland regained independence in 1918, the different legal systems of the various partitioning states all remained in force on its territory. Drafts of uniform laws were to be drawn up by the Codification Commission established in 1919. One of its tasks was the preparation of a draft of the family and guardianship law. The sub-commission addressing this division of civil law worked until the outbreak of World War Two. The minutes of its sittings disappeared in September 1939 along with the total output of the Codification Commission. However, copies of minutes of the sittings of the subcommission held in 1939 were found in Kazimierz Przybyłowski’s collection of books donated to the Faculty of Law and Administration of University of Silesia in Katowice. These minutes shed new light on the final phase of the codification works. Publication of these documents will enable further detailed research on the history of family law in interwar Poland. The third part of the publication consists of minutes nos. 190–196.

Initial clinical, laboratory and radiological features of SARS-CoV-2-infected patients and their impact on the course of the disease.

On March 11, 2020, coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was declared a global threat by the World Health Organization (WHO). It quickly became apparent that reducing inpatient mortality rates and early phase prediction of possible deterioration or severe disease course relied on finding more specific biomarkers. This retrospective study assessed initial clinical, laboratory and radiological features of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)-infected patients and explored their impact on mortality and the course of the disease. Such efforts aimed to facilitate the identification of high-risk patients and to improve the formulation of treatment plans for these individuals. The cohort comprised 111 consecutive adult inpatients diagnosed with COVID-19 and hospitalized in the Internal Medicine Ward of the University Clinical Center of prof. K. Gibiński of the Medical University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland, a COVID-19 Treatment Unit, between November 16, 2020 and February 15, 2021. All available clinical, laboratory and radiological findings were extracted from electronic records and assessed as possible risk factors for poor prognosis. Clinicasl and radiological features with higher frequency in COVID-19 non-survivors included older age, history of smoking, concomitant cardiovascular diseases, low oxygen saturation (SpO2), and high infection risk assessed on admission as well as high opacity score, percentage of opacity and percentage of high opacity in computed tomography. Non-survivors had decreased serum lymphocytes, monocytes, calcium, magnesium, and hemoglobin oxygen saturation. They also had increased red cell distribution width (RDW), C-reactive protein (CRP), procalcitonin, alkaline phosphatase (ALP), creatinine, blood urea nitrogen (BUN), D-dimer, troponin, and N-terminal prohormone of brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) levels, as well as a base deficit. This retrospective study identified several markers associated with a fatal course of COVID-19. The early assessment of SARS-CoV-2-infected inpatients should consider these markers.

Nieznane protokoły posiedzeń podkomisji prawa o stosunkach z pokrewieństwa i opieki Komisji Kodyfikacyjnej Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej z 1939 roku (część IV)

Lost Minutes of the Sittings of the Sub-commission on the Law on Kinship and Care Relationships of the Codification Commission of the Republic of Poland in 1939 (Part IV) When Poland regained independence in 1918, the different legal systems of the various partitioning states all remained in force on its territory. Drafts of uniform laws were to be drawn up by the Codification Commission established in 1919. One of its tasks was the preparation of a draft of the family and guardianship law. The sub-commission addressing this division of civil law worked until the outbreak of World War Two. The minutes of its sittings disappeared in September 1939 along with the total output of the Codification Commission. However, copies of minutes of the sittings of the subcommission held in 1939 were found in Kazimierz Przybyłowski’s collection of books donated to the Faculty of Law and Administration of University of Silesia in Katowice. These minutes shed new light on the final phase of the codification works. Publication of these documents will enable further detailed research on the history of family law in interwar Poland. The fourth part of the publication consists of minutes nos. 197–201, and includes the reconstruction of articles 1–16, 40–58, and the draft of articles 59–78a as well.

GENDER EQUALITY PLAN FOR R&I. OBSERVATIONS BASED ON THE INITIAL EXPERIENCES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF SILESIA IN KATOWICE

The European Union has for many years been firmly committed to promoting gender equality in research and innovation (R&I). Despite this, the sector is still characterised by the persistence of structural barriers that prevent underrepresented groups from developing equally. To counteract this, those applying for Horizon Europe funding today must have a Gender Equality Plan (GEP). This study aims to present the theoretical and practical issues related to developing and implementing a Gender Equality Plan in R&I. However, this issue poses a challenge for many R&I entities (especially in Poland). The plan should, on the one hand, meet the requirements of the European Commission and, on the other, be a specific strategy designed to meet particular needs. Thus, the article explains: what precisely a GEP is and, what elements it should contain, how to create such a plan step by step, the EU recommendations in this respect are confronted with the first experiences of the University of Silesia in Katowice, and finally, it proves that a GEP is a proactive measure aimed at eliminating gender discrimination and identifying potential violations. At the same time, if taken seriously, it also can contribute to the construction and development of a real equal treatment policy in a workplace such as an R&I entity. Due to the rather practical (sofar) aspect of the issue, the article is primarily based on EU and national documents (both binding and soft, strategic). At the same time, the literature analysis is only complementary.

The importance and effectiveness of nutritional counselling in patients with autoimmune thyroid diseases in Poland

BackgroundAutoimmune thyroid diseases are the most common diseases in humans. Their pathogenesis is complex, pushing patients to search different ways of alleviating their effects, one of which is diet change. The aim of this study was to assess the role of medical personnel in shaping eating habits in patients with autoimmune thyroid disease based on experiences declared by patients.MethodsWe examined 208 individuals, of which 205 were qualified for final investigation. We selected study participants using accidental sampling, based on their appearance in health care facilities, including the ones providing endocrinological advices. The relationships between the qualitative features were tested using the Chi-square test of independence, assuming the significance level of p < 0.05. In the case of the expected cardinality < 10, the Chi-square test with correction for Yates continuity was used, while for the cardinality < 5—the Fisher exact test.ResultsPeople with thyroid disease are statistically more likely to use dietitian advice than people without thyroid disease. The highest percentage of respondents decided to modify their nutrition due to their own initiative. In addition, patients with autoimmune thyroid disease are statistically more likely to consider changing their diet to improve their well-being. The connection between the source of advice and modification of eating behaviour was also noted.ConclusionThanks to the joint effort of medical staff, patients can receive reliable knowledge about their disease, treatment and nutrition adapted to their needs.Trial registration approved by the Bioethics Committee of Medical University of Silesia in Katowice (opinion no.: PCN/0022/KB1/80/2)

Tutoring in University Education as an Extended Perspective (Reality) and an Element of Inclusive Education

Tutoring as a certain architecture of academic excellence is a method of preparing students for work, creating conditions for further research activities, and restoring the personal growth function of university education, whose goal is to foster attitudes and values that are understood as universal goods (Dziedziczak-Foltyn et al., 2020). The article consists of the following parts: an introduction and the main sections, presenting successively the basic theories, the applied methodology, the main analysis, and the conclusions. The main objective of this paper is to organize the theoretical foundations of tutoring and present the results of a study conducted by a team of researchers from the Faculty of Arts and Educational Science at the University of Silesia in Katowice. The members of the above-mentioned tutoring research team are the authors of this article. The research concerned the ways of defining tutoring by students of pedagogical fields of study who carry out tutoring in inclusive education institutions. In the course of the research, it turned out that tutoring is defined as a method, support, practice, teaching, experience, development, relationship, work, and observation. The method applied in their research is qualitative analysis.

Psyttala horrida (Stål, 1865) (Hemiptera: Reduviidae: Reduviinae)-A Morphological Study of Eggs and Nymphs.

In terms of body size, species of the genus Psyttala Stål, 1859, are the largest known representatives of the subfamily Reduviinae. Among the species belonging to this genus, Psyttala horrida (Stål, 1865) is the most popular, mainly because it is a laboratory breeding species. Individuals of this species were bred in the laboratory of the Zoology Team at the University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland. A description of the morphology of the nymphs and eggs is presented. In addition to descriptions, photos of the successive immature stages are provided and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images are included to show morphological details and compare the developmental changes in subsequent stages.

Думи на водещите

Issue 53 includes publications on topics related to the manifestations of communication and rhetoric in dynamically developing fields and spheres in the 21st century: politics, social processes, media, the internet, business, education, etc. Some articles are more narrowly thematic, while others present the results of interdisciplinary research. The methods and methodologies used by the authors are both quantitative and qualitative. The analyses include inferring phenomena and processes in different areas of society, identifying trends, and presenting predictions from a scientific perspective. Bulgarian reality is one of the objects of study. Katya Mihailova analyses the campaigns for early parliamentary elections in Bulgaria in 2021 and draws rhetorical and discursive features based on an in-depth analysis. The presidential election candidates in Bulgaria in 2021 are analysed through the prism of visual communication and in particular based on posters by Anelia Georgieva. A broader scope is presented in the research of Ivelina Boevska, who presents digital democracy not only in a national context but also reaches to bring out the essence and trends in the dynamic communication environment from the perspective of political communication, political science and sociology. Again in discursive terms, but this time the dominant one is the online space as the object of study, with the authors (Natalia Ryabchenko, Olga Malysheva, Veronika Katermina, Anna Gnedash) making a study on the American reality from a linguistic perspective. Media and contemporary phenomena and manifestations are studied by Iliya Valkov, who analyzes four media or platforms that are part of the media ecosystem and media market in the country. Blogs and blogging are the subject of a theoretical overview by Rosalina Bozhilova, who presents traditional and new types and identifies specific manifestations. Lavinia Enache finds intersections between virtual communities, branding, ecotourism and consumer behaviour, with a focus on Romania. Education, academic communication and changes in the attitudes of teachers and students provoke the interest of researchers. Antoaneta Getova informs about some results of an analysis of changes in attitudes and communication in higher education during the pandemic in Bulgaria. Zeyneb Khadi, Hana Aissaoui present results of hybrid learning in an virtual environment in Algeria. Randy Harris’s book “Linguistic Wars: Chomsky, Lakoff, and the Battle for Deep Structure” is presented by Simeon Vassilev. The text has the metaphorical yet informative and appealing title of Randy Harris’s Linguistic Shakespeare. The publications written by students from the University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland (Armin Kuźmiński and Agnieszka Budzisz), are related to public and media communication. The internationality of the authors and the broad range of the subject matter, the high quality of the research, and the topicality of the issues are the features of Issue 53. Traditionally, there is a section introducing the authors.

Doctoral School, Faculty Of Health Sciences In Katowice, Medical University Of Silesia In Katowice

In recent years, physiotherapy has become an intrinsic element of the basic treatment of many diseases, including cancer. It can serve as a preparatory element before main treatment

The Project "Colourful Means Healthy" as an Educational Measure for the Prevention of Diet-Related Diseases: Investigating the Impact of Nutrition Education for School-Aged Children on Their Nutritional Knowledge.

Methods: An educational project called Cooking and Educational Workshops “Colourful means healthy” was conducted at the Department of Dietetics of the Faculty of Public Health in Bytom of the Medical University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland, between 1 July 2017 and 30 June 2019. The participants/recipients of the project were second-grade primary schoolchildren (317 pupils aged 7–9 years). Objective: The aim of this article is to assess the change in knowledge of the principles of healthy eating among children aged 7–9 years following the nutritional education we carried out as part of the “Colourful means healthy” project. As part of project evaluation, the participating children were asked to rate selected food products in terms of their influence on human health (healthy vs. unhealthy). Results: There was a statistically significant difference between the percentage of correct answers provided by the pupils before and after nutrition education. Thus, one may conclude that conducting an educational programme caused the participants’ nutrition knowledge to increase. Conclusion: The present study demonstrated the potential of nutrition education in the form of cooking and educational workshops in terms of increasing nutrition knowledge. As such, workshops like these can be a useful measure for improving eating habits and eliminating dietary errors in the study population. However, future research is needed in order to verify whether such cooking and educational workshops can produce beneficial and lasting changes in dietary habits over the long term.

Stress and physical activity level during COVID-19 pandemic in medical students from Medical University in Katowice.

Students of medical faculties are exposed to greater stress than students of other faculties. In addition, remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic changed the way and quality of life for most people. The aim of the study was to assess the level of stress among medical students during and before the COVID-19 pandemic. The second purpose was to find out if the level of physical activity had an impact on the stress level of students. 248 students of the Medical University of Silesia in Katowice participated in the study. The research tool was the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) and the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10). The stress level was significantly higher during the pandemic (p <0.001) than before (17.07 vs 23.17, respectively). Before the pandemic, students with higher levels of physical activity were characterized by lower levels of stress (p <0.001). The COVID-19 pandemic caused an increase in stress among medical students. In light of the spread of the virus, it makes sense to continue research with a wider group to investigate the specific relationship between physical activity and stress, and other methods and strategies of coping with stress which could serve as guidelines and recommendations for students.

Nieznane protokoły posiedzeń podkomisji prawa o stosunkach z pokrewieństwa i opieki Komisji Kodyfikacyjnej Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej z 1939 roku (część II)

When Poland regained independence in 1918, the different legal systems of the various partitioning states all remained in force on its territory. Drafts of uniform laws were to be drawn up by the Codification Commission established in 1919. One of its tasks was the preparation of a draft of the family and guardianship law. The sub-commission addressing this division of civil law worked until the outbreak of World War Two. The minutes of its sittings disappeared in September 1939 along with the total output of the Codification Commission. However, copies of minutes of the sittings of the sub-commission held in 1939 were found in Kazimierz Przybyłowski’s collection of books donated to the Faculty of Law and Administration of University of Silesia in Katowice. These minutes shed new light on the final phase of the codification works. Publication of these documents will enable further detailed research on the history of family law in interwar Poland. The second part of the publication consists of minutes nos. 183–189.

Aphidomorpha (Insecta: Hemiptera) in the entomological collection of the Zoology Research Group, University of Silesia in Katowice (DZUS), Poland.

The digitisation of the entomology resources of the Department of Zoology, University of Silesia DZUS (presently the Zoology Research Group, Katowice, Poland) allow presenting a substantial collection of aphids, adelgids and phylloxerids (Hemiptera: Aphidomorpha). The collection preserves more than 12 500 curated specimens stored as over 9 500 slides representing 683 taxa (645 identified to the species level and 38 identified only to the genus level), 160 genera, three families and 15 subfamilies. Thirty species represent type material. The geographical analysis of the Aphidomorpha collected shows mainly Eurasian areas, with particularly good representation from Central Europe (especially Poland). The highest diversity is represented by species of Aphididae (98.6%), with the richest in samples subfamily Aphidinae (65.2%). Four hundred twelve genera (972 taxa) of host plants from 99 families were identified among the slide-mounted specimens. A new nameAphis (Aphis) jaroslavholmani nom. nov. is proposed for Aphis (Aphis) holmani Kanturski Bezdk, 2019.

Should “medical students` disease” be regarded as a true disease entity? Cross-sectional study among Polish students

IntroductionThere is a widely known stereotype about medical majors repeated by generations of medical practitioners called ,,medical student disease”. It’s based on a belief that unexperienced students are prone to develop pathological fear of medical conditions they are studying about.ObjectivesThe aim of the study was to examine two populations of students - medical and non-medical ones in order to compare their level of hypochondriacal behavior and health-related anxiety. Moreover we looked for other factors which might have had an influence on hypochondria and nosophobia among them.Methods The proprietary questionnaire was completed by 606 students (303 medical students of the Medical University of Silesia in Katowice and 293 students of the 3 largest non-medical universities in Katowice).ResultsThe results show that medical students receive same scores on a nosophobia scale as students of non-medical universities (p=0,5). The analysis of hypochondriacal behavior showed significantly higher results in non-medical students group (p=0,02) .The higher medical students were at the stages of academic education, the higher the results of nosophobia they obtained. In the entire study group female received higher score in relation to the fear of illness (p = 0.001). People with mental disorders achieve significantly higher results of nosophobia (p &lt;0.001 in the entire group) and of hypochondria (p &lt;0.001 for the entire cohort).ConclusionsOur study challenges the widespread belief that medical students, compared to their peers, are overly anxious about their own health. Gender and having a mental illness are predictors of hypochondria and nosophobia.DisclosureNo significant relationships.