Research methods & reporting

Pain management is a critical aspect of cancer treatment and palliative care, where pain can significantly impact quality of life. Chronic pain, which affects a significant number of people worldwide, remains a prevalent and challenging symptom for patients. While medications and psychosocial support systems play a role in pain management, surgical and radiological interventions, including cingulotomy, may be necessary for refractory cases. Cingulotomy, a neurosurgical procedure targeting the cingulate gyrus, aims to disrupt neural pathways associated with emotional processing and pain sensation, thereby reducing the affective component of pain...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: The present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the relationship between health-promoting lifestyle profile (HPLP) among medical students and contextual factors such as gender, age, field of study, academic level, marital status, history of physical and mental illnesses, and smoking. METHODS: The present research was conducted in a cross-sectional method in 2021 on 500 students of Shiraz University of Medical Students. An e-questionnaire link was sent to them via email...

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to investigate gaps in the delivery of two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and other sexual and gender identity (2SLGBTQ+) curricula and identify curricular challenges within Canadian dental schools. METHODS: A 21-item closed-ended questionnaire was distributed to curriculum experts across 10 dental schools in Canada. The survey questions were organized into three sections: institution characteristics, current 2SLGBTQ+ content and delivery, and opinions on the improvement of the 2SLGBTQ+ curriculum...

Wide variation in amenability to transformation and regeneration (TR) among many plant species and genotypes presents a challenge to the use of genetic engineering in research and breeding. To help understand the causes of this variation, we performed association mapping and network analysis using a population of 1204 wild trees of Populus trichocarpa (black cottonwood). To enable precise and high-throughput phenotyping of callus and shoot TR, we developed a computer vision system that cross-referenced complementary red, green, and blue (RGB) and fluorescent-hyperspectral images...

BACKGROUND: The characteristics of the implementation process of interventions are essential for bridging the gap between research and practice. This scoping review aims to identify the implementation process of social network interventions (SNI) to address physical activity and sedentary behaviors in children and adolescents. METHODS: The scoping review was conducted adhering to the established guidelines. The search was carried out in the ERIC, EBSCO, EMBASE, SCOPUS, and Lilacs databases in April 2023...

BACKGROUND: As a primary form of work-related violence in the healthcare sector, patient mistreatment negatively impacts nurses' well-being. To date, there has yet reached a definitive conclusion on the mediating mechanism and boundary conditions behind the influence of patient mistreatment on nurses' emotional exhaustion. METHODS: This study employed a convenience sampling method to recruit a sample of 1672 nurses from public hospitals in Western China. The data were collected through anonymous self-report questionnaires and analyzed using hierarchical regression and conditional processes to investigate a theoretical framework encompassing patient mistreatment, emotional exhaustion, social sharing of negative events, organizational support, and trait resilience...

In this study, a new type of multi-arch tunnel construction method is proposed. This effort is undertaken due to the many disadvantages of the traditional multi-arch tunnel construction method. Furthermore, this method omits the construction of a middle pilot tunnel, and it has the advantages of safety, high efficiency, and being economical. When using the method of continuous arch tunneling without a middle pilot tunnel, the blasting of the first tunnel and the following tunnel has a greater impact on the surrounding rock damage, as well as on the supporting structure of the same cross-section...

This study deals with the investigation of the water removal efficiency (WRE) from crude oil using a commercial demulsifier. The impacts of time, demulsifier concentration, and temperature on WRE were experimentally studied. The results implied the fact that temperature plays a substantial role in the demulsification and has a direct correlation with WRE. In addition, while increasing the concentration up to 40 ppm contributed to reaching a higher WRE, it did not have positive effects on efficiency at higher concentrations (overdose) and just led to more demulsifier consumption...

Radiological imaging to examine intracranial blood vessels is critical for preoperative planning and postoperative follow-up. Automated segmentation of cerebrovascular anatomy from Time-Of-Flight Magnetic Resonance Angiography (TOF-MRA) can provide radiologists with a more detailed and precise view of these vessels. This paper introduces a domain generalized artificial intelligence (AI) solution for volumetric monitoring of cerebrovascular structures from multi-center MRAs. Our approach utilizes a multi-task deep convolutional neural network (CNN) with a topology-aware loss function to learn voxel-wise segmentation of the cerebrovascular tree...

This study begins by considering the resource-sharing characteristics of scientific research projects to address the issues of resource misalignment and conflict in scientific research project management. It comprehensively evaluates the tangible and intangible resources required during project execution and establishes a resource conflict risk index system. Subsequently, a resource conflict risk management model for scientific research projects is developed using Back Propagation (BP) neural networks. This model incorporates the Dropout regularization technique to enhance the generalization capacity of the BP neural network...

To evaluate user perceptions and educational impact of gamified online role-play in teledentistry as well as to construct a conceptual framework highlighting how to design this interactive learning strategy, this research employed an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design. Participants were requested to complete self-perceived assessments toward confidence and awareness in teledentistry before and after participating in a gamified online role-play. They were also asked to complete a satisfaction questionnaire and participate in an in-depth interview to investigate their learning experience...

The distinctive nature of cancer as a disease prompts an exploration of the special characteristics the genes implicated in cancer exhibit. The identification of cancer-associated genes and their characteristics is crucial to further our understanding of this disease and enhanced likelihood of therapeutic drug targets success. However, the rate at which cancer genes are being identified experimentally is slow. Applying predictive analysis techniques, through the building of accurate machine learning models, is potentially a useful approach in enhancing the identification rate of these genes and their characteristics...

The deep coalbed methane (CBM) resources are widely developed in the Linxing Block. However, the evaluation of CBM geological areas suitable for CBM exploitation remains unexplored, hindering further development. This research optimizes the key geological parameters that influence the development of deep CBM from the perspectives of resource and development conditions. The evaluation system for deep CBM recoverability has been established, and the multi-fuzzy evaluation method has been used to perform the quantitative evaluation of recoverability...

This overview of the systematic review provides guidance regarding how and when to use this approach to a research question. High quality systematic reviews are essential to assist health care practitioners keep current with the large and rapidly growing body of scientific evidence. The systematic review is a transparent and reproducible synthesis of all the available evidence on a clearly defined research question or topic. Key stages in conducting a systematic review include clarification of aims and methods in a protocol, finding all of the relevant research, data collection, quality assessments, synthesizing evidence, and interpreting the findings...

Purpose Disaster victim identification (DVI) service requires knowledge, confidence, and an attitude (KCA) of readiness. The purpose of this study was to assess allied dental students' perceived KCA regarding DVI skills and topics. Methods A convenience sample of senior dental hygiene students (n=27) and senior dental assistant students (n=14) were recruited by email then presented mismatched simulated antemortem (AM) and postmortem (PM) bitewing radiographs and asked to indicate correct matches. Collectively, participants made 205 radiographic matches and indicated 205 degrees of certainty binarily as "positive" or "possible" (one per match)...

IMPORTANCE: The Practical Guide to Implementing PROMs in Gender-Affirming Care (PG-PROM-GAC) is an evidence-based resource, which was developed in response to international calls for improved patient-reported outcome measure (PROM) implementation in gender-affirming care. The PG-PROM-GAC has the potential to improve PROM implementation; however, its real-world effectiveness has not yet been investigated. OBJECTIVE: Investigate effectiveness and fidelity of three implementation strategies from the PG-PROM-GAC in a real-world gender clinic setting...

The effect of coastal wetland loss on shorebird habitat in recent years has been widely reported in previous studies. Various coastal wetland conservation and restoration measures have been implemented or will soon be implemented in China. The extent to which these measures will affect the area and structure of coastal wetland habitat in the future remains unclear. Here, we predicted changes in habitat area and structure for 39 common shorebird species along the coasts of the Yellow and Bohai Seas using a cellular automata-Markov (CA-Markov) land use scenario model and a maximum entropy species distribution model, along with terrain factors (slope, aspect, and digital evaluation model) and climate factors (temperature and precipitation) from the Data Centre for Resources and Environmental Sciences at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, land cover maps interpreted using the human-computer interactive method, and citizen science data of shorebird occurrences derived from eBird, Global Biodiversity Information Facility, and Bird Report...

Emotional eating (EE) is defined as eating in response to negative emotions (e.g., sadness and boredom). Child temperament and parental feeding practices are predictive of child EE and may interact to shape child EE. Previous research has demonstrated that children eat more when they are experiencing sadness, however, boredom-EE (despite how common boredom is in children) has yet to be explored experimentally using remote methodologies. The current study explores whether feeding practices and child temperament interact with mood to predict children's snack selection in an online hypothetical food choice task...

BACKGROUND: Overweight and obesity have multiple negative consequences for the health of both the mother and the child. Interventions to prevent excessive weight gain during pregnancy have had varying success, and the proportion of pregnant women who exceed national guidelines for weight gain continues to increase. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the impact of factors on weight management among pregnant women with overweight or obesity METHODS: This meta-synthesis of qualitative studies involved searching databases PubMed, Embase, Cochrane, Scopus, and Web of Science...

BACKGROUND: Information on the causes of deaths from diarrhoea in children younger than 5 years is needed to design improved preventive and therapeutic approaches. We aimed to conduct a systematic analysis of studies to report estimates of the causes of deaths from diarrhoea in children younger than 5 years at global and regional levels during 2000-21. METHODS: For this systematic review and Bayesian multinomial analysis, we included 12 pathogens with the highest attributable incidence in the Global Enteric Multicenter Study...