Search Results (4,118)

Background: Telenursing comprises a set of tools and interventions enabling nurses to provide remote care. This study aims to assess the impact of telenursing interventions on the supportive care needs of patients with melanoma and lung cancer who are receiving targeted therapies. Methods: This six-month monocentric, double-arm, randomised, controlled trial study protocol will assess the effect of telenursing on the supportive care needs (primary outcome) in 40 patients (20 in each group) after one month. The secondary outcomes will be monitored at baseline, one, three and six months: supportive care needs (at three and six months), therapeutic adherence, quality of life, usability and satisfaction, performance status, patient-reported outcomes and main adverse events. The SPIRIT guidelines will be used for the reporting. Results: The results from this trial will assess the impact of a telenursing intervention on cancer care. Conclusions: This trial could be a starting point for more extensive studies on telenursing interventions to promote nurses’ skills, as well as the quality and safety of care in patients with cancer, highlighting the impact of more outstanding nursing contributions on cancer care. Trial and Protocol Registration: The study protocol was approved by the relevant Italian Ethics Committee Lazio Area 5 (RS1851/23, 2773; 6 September 2023) and was registered on ClinicalTrials.gov (trial registry number NCT06254196). Full article

Background: Digital educational technologies in health have been an important instrument for promoting learning, self-care, self-esteem, and security regarding prevention and health promotion actions that lead to changes in behavior, mainly for non-communicable disease patients, such as type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (DM 2). Objective: This study aimed to describe a protocol for evaluating the effect of an app for cell phones and tablets on the blood glucose of older adults with DM 2. Methods: The protocol will be used to compare the effectiveness of an application for mobile devices concerning the educational booklet in reducing Glycated Hemoglobin in older adults with DM 2 in Primary Health Care. This protocol is part of a Randomized Clinical Trial project entitled Effectiveness of a Mobile Device Application on Glycated Hemoglobin in Elderly People with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: a Randomized Clinical Trial. Results: The protocol was structured in the following phases: (i) sample calculation, (ii) invitation to participate in the study according to the eligibility criteria; (iii) participant registration; (iv) randomization and allocation of participants into groups (double blinding); (v) application of the intervention; (vi) post-intervention procedures (post-test); (vii) data analysis. Conclusion: It is expected that encouraging studies on the impact of a mobile application will improve and enhance health education focused on self-care for older adults with DM 2, potentially influencing the local health system by reducing hospitalizations due to conditions that are sensitive to primary care, since health promotion and prevention of DM-related illnesses will be the main focus of the application and booklet developed. Full article

Against the backdrop of Healthy China and an aging population, there is an urgent need to explore the effect of the Healthy Cities Pilot Policy (HCPP) on residents’ labor supply. This study integrates the HCPP, residents’ health, and labor supply time into a unified analytical framework. Using data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) spanning the period 2011–2020 and leveraging the quasi-natural experiment provided by China’s 2016 HCPP, we empirically investigate its effects on labor supply time among middle-aged and elderly workers. Our findings indicate: (1) HCPP increases average weekly working hours by 2.834 h in pilot cities. (2) HCPP significantly enhances residents’ health status in pilot cities, extending their healthy time. (3) Middle-aged and elderly workers allocate more of their extended healthy time to labor rather than leisure, potentially influenced by traditional Chinese perceptions of “ceaseless toil”. (4) The impact of HCPP on labor supply time exhibits group heterogeneity, with stronger promotion effects observed among vulnerable middle-aged and elderly groups characterized by older age, rural household registration, lower educational attainment, and lower income levels. This research offers insights for policymakers aiming to optimize health policies and promote sustainable development within Chinese society. Full article

Polyamines modulate cellular proliferation and function. Their dysregulation results in inflammatory and oncological repercussions. This study aims to map the current literature and provide an overview of polyamines in dysbiotic oral conditions among older adults. English publications indexed in MEDLINE, Scopus, and Web of Science from January 2000 to May 2024 were screened. Eligibility criteria included clinical and laboratory studies using samples from adults aged 65 or above. This scoping review identified 2725 publications and included 19 publications. Ten studies detected that older adults with oral carcinoma had increased levels of polyamines such as spermidine in saliva and tumour-affected tissues. Eight studies reported older adults suffering from periodontal infection had increased levels of polyamines such as putrescine in saliva, gingival crevicular fluid, and biofilm from the gingival crevice. Two studies showed polyamine levels could reflect the success of periodontal therapy. Three studies found older adults with halitosis had increased levels of polyamines such as cadaverine in saliva and tongue biofilm. Polyamines were suggested as biomarkers for these oral conditions. In conclusion, certain polyamine levels are elevated in older adults with oral cancer, periodontal infections, and halitosis. Polyamines may be used as a simple and non-invasive tool to detect dysbiotic oral conditions and monitor treatment progress in older adults (Open Science Framework registration). Full article

Rural adolescents are at higher risk of reduced academic persistence due to socioeconomic barriers. Educational expectations are theoretically viewed as important for adolescents’ learning behaviors, and cross-sectional research has supported this assumption. However, few longitudinal studies have investigated the influence of educational expectations on adolescents’ academic persistence. In addition, research has not clearly identified whether self-esteem moderates this link among adolescents who experience greater economic risk. Using data from two time points (i.e., six months apart), this study aims to provide a more complete understanding of whether, and under what conditions, rural adolescents’ educational expectations influence academic persistence. The participants consist of 631 adolescents (M_age = 13.34 years at T1), and all the adolescents are from families with rural household registrations. The results show that the interaction term of educational expectations and self-esteem significantly predicts academic persistence. Specifically, after controlling for baseline academic persistence, educational expectations positively predict later academic persistence for rural adolescents with lower self-esteem, and educational expectations do not significantly predict later academic persistence for those with higher self-esteem. This study reveals the protective role of self-esteem in rural adolescents. High self-esteem benefits rural adolescents by protecting them from the effects of lower educational expectations on academic persistence. This finding also emphasizes the importance of developing self-esteem interventions for rural adolescents with low educational expectations to prevent them from experiencing weaker academic persistence. Full article

Recommended List (RL) is the UK plant variety recommendation system introduced in 1944 for supporting growers in making decisions on variety choices. The current RL system is heavily focused on single-trial analyses developed in the 1980s without making full use of information across varieties and trial sites. Given the statistical advances that have been developed and adopted elsewhere, it is timely to review and update the methods for data analysis in RL. In addition, threats from climate change challenge the prediction of variety performance in future environments. Better variety recommendations, particularly for matching varieties to specific environments can be achieved through the improved modeling of effects from genetics, environments, and genetic-by-environment interactions. Here, we evaluate grain yield data from 153 spring barley varieties that were trialed for RL from 2002 to 2019. Our results show that the current RL system produces poor and inconsistent predictions on variety performance across environments. Improvement in RL can be achieved by using mixed models that account for genetic relationships among varieties, and additional improvement is possible if genetic-by-environment interaction can be modeled accurately. We highlight the relevance and importance of genomics in both variety registration and recommendation. Full article

Background: Peanut consumption could impact cardiometabolic health through gut microbiota, a hypothesis that remains to be investigated. A randomized clinical trial in Vietnam evaluated whether peanut consumption alters gut microbiome communities. Methods: One hundred individuals were included and randomly assigned to the peanut intervention and control groups. A total of 51 participants were provided with and asked to consume 50 g of peanuts daily, while 49 controls maintained their usual dietary intake for 16 weeks. Stool samples were collected before and on the last day of the trial. After excluding 22 non-compliant participants and those who received antibiotic treatment, 35 participants from the intervention and 43 from the control were included in the analysis. Gut microbiota composition was measured by shotgun metagenomic sequencing. Associations of changes in gut microbial diversity with peanut intervention were evaluated via linear regression analysis. Linear mixed-effects models were used to analyze associations of composition, sub-community structure, and microbial metabolic pathways with peanut intervention. We also performed beta regression analysis to examine the impact of peanut intervention on the overall and individual stability of microbial taxa and metabolic pathways. All associations with false discovery rate (FDR)-corrected p-values of <0.1 were considered statistically significant. Results: No significant changes were found in α- and β-diversities and overall gut microbial stability after peanut intervention. However, the peanut intervention led to lower enrichment of five phyla, five classes, two orders, twenty-four metabolic pathways, and six species-level sub-communities, with a dominant representation of Bifidobacterium pseudocatenulatum, Escherichia coli D, Holdemanella biformis, Ruminococcus D bicirculans, Roseburia inulinivorans, and MGYG-HGUT-00200 (p < 0.05 and FDR < 0.1). The peanut intervention led to the short-term stability of several species, such as Faecalibacterium prausnitzii F and H, and a metabolic pathway involved in nitrate reduction V (p < 0.05; FDR < 0.1), known for their potential roles in human health, especially cardiovascular health. Conclusions: In summary, a 16-week peanut intervention led to significant changes in gut microbial composition, species-level sub-communities, and the short-term stability of several bacteria, but not overall gut microbial diversity and stability. Further research with a larger sample size and a longer intervention period is needed to confirm these findings and investigate the direct impact of gut-microbiome-mediated health effects of peanut consumption. Trial registration: The International Traditional Medicine Clinical Trial Registry (ITMCTR). Registration number: ITMCTR2024000050. Retrospectively Registered 24 April 2024. Full article

Background: Caregiver–infant reciprocity is related to infant/toddler development and health. However, there is a dearth of research on reciprocity variables like co-occupation and developmental variables such as infant/toddler sensory processing/preferences, and it is important to understand the biopsychosocial mediators of these relations. These include novel genetic markers like maternal oxytocin receptor single-nucleotide polymorphisms (OXTR SNPs). Therefore, this study examined whether mothers carrying risk alleles for three OXTR SNPs displayed different co-occupational behaviors with their infants and whether their infants/toddlers showed different sensory processing/preferences. Methods: Data from the Infant Development and Healthy Outcomes in Mothers Study included prenatal saliva samples assayed for OXTR SNPs, 6-month postnatal behavioral observations coded for maternal–infant co-occupations (reciprocal emotionality, physicality, and intentionality), and 10-, 14-, and 18-month postnatal, maternal-reported Infant/Toddler Sensory Profiles (classified as within or outside the majority range for low registration, sensory seeking, sensory sensitivity, and sensory avoiding). Results: Mothers with rs53576 risk allele A engaged in more frequent reciprocal emotionality, while those with rs2254298 risk allele A engaged in less frequent reciprocal emotionality but more frequent reciprocal intentionality. Mothers with rs53576 risk allele A had infants with 11 times greater odds of being outside of the majority range for sensation avoiding at 10 months old. Conclusions: The results converge with the literature supporting links between OXTR SNPs, caregiver reciprocity, and infant/toddler development but extend the findings to relatively novel constructs (caregiver–infant co-occupations and infant/toddler sensory processing/preferences). Full article

Polymetallic enrichment layers are commonly found at the base of the Lower Cambrian and extensively distributed across the Upper Yangtze Platform, yet their genetic models remain controversial. This study systematically collected samples from a typical section in the southeastern Chongqing region for mineral, organic, and inorganic analyses. It investigates the relationship between the abundance of various trace metal elements and organic matter at the base of the Niutitang Formation, as well as the vertical distribution characteristics of organic carbon isotopes and organic matter features. The results indicate that the Niutitang Formation shale exhibits a distinct three-part structure from bottom to top. Various metal elements are enriched in the lower interval, showing a close correlation between the abundance of polymetallic elements and the carbon isotopes of shale organic matter. The middle interval contains the highest TOC value and the lowest Ti/Al ratio, while the upper interval shows a significant decrease in organic matter abundance, with a clear positive correlation between the excess silicon content and Ti/Al ratio. Additionally, the mixing effect of deep-sea upwelling is the primary control on the formation of polymetallic enrichment layers in the lower interval, followed by the adsorption of organic matter under anoxic conditions. The sedimentary environment of the upper interval of the Niutitang Formation trends toward oxidation, with paleoclimate shifting toward colder and drier conditions, exhibiting aeolian sedimentary features that are unfavorable for the enrichment of trace metal elements. Consequently, upwelling is a key factor in the enrichment and mineralization of trace metal elements at the base of the Lower Cambrian in the Upper Yangtze region. Full article

Image registration is essential for applications requiring the joint processing of inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) images, such as interferometric ISAR, image enhancement, and image fusion. Traditional image registration methods, developed for optical images, often perform poorly with ISAR images due to their differing imaging mechanisms. This paper introduces a novel spatial feature-based ISAR image registration method. The method encodes spatial information by utilizing the distances and angles between dominant scatterers to construct translation and rotation-invariant feature descriptors. These feature descriptors are then used for scatterer matching, while the coordinate transformation of matched scatterers is employed to estimate image registration parameters. To mitigate the glint effects of scatterers, the random sample consensus (RANSAC) algorithm is applied for parameter estimation. By extracting global spatial information, the constructed feature curves exhibit greater stability and reliability. Additionally, using multiple dominant scatterers ensures adaptability to low signal-to-noise (SNR) ratio conditions. The effectiveness of the method is validated through both simulated and natural ISAR image sequences. Comparative performance results with traditional image registration methods, such as the SIFT, SURF and SIFT+SURF algorithms, are also included. Full article

Goal 4 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals emphasizes ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education to achieve sustainability. It is well known that gifted mathematics education is crucial, but teachers for gifted mathematics education are extremely scarce. The promotion of sustainability in gifted mathematics education on a large scale is an important issue to ensure equity and quality in education. Mathematical competitions have always been an important method for gifted education and have received widespread attention from students and parents. Many high school students prepare for these competitions through extracurricular gifted mathematics tutoring. With the advancement of science and technology and the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, many tutoring courses have gradually turned to online courses. Online gifted mathematics education has become a model for developing gifted education. In this study, we conducted an in-depth analysis of the learning patterns, grades, and family backgrounds of students participating in mathematics competitions in 10 key high schools in Liaoning Province from 2018 to 2024. The research results are as follows: (1) Before the COVID-19 pandemic, extracurricular gifted mathematics education primarily consisted of offline courses. During the COVID-19 pandemic, online learning resources developed rapidly and became prevalent, while offline education decreased. (2) Students from high-income families preferred offline courses when participating in extracurricular gifted education tutoring for mathematics. In contrast, students from middle- and low-income families were more inclined to choose online courses. Household registration and the place of residence had a weak correlation with the time spent participating in online gifted mathematics education. Among the influencing factors, material resources such as computers, smartphones, and broadband internet had a significant mediating effect. (3) With the advent of online education, the correlation between mathematics competition achievements and family income significantly decreased. However, students from rural families face challenges in accessing online education due to a lack of material resources consequent to the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in lower mathematics competition achievements. The results show that online gifted education in mathematics breaks through the limitations of time, space, and resources; solves the problem of scarce teaching staff; and helps promote a comprehensive strategy for sustainable development in gifted education. At the same time, issues such as the digital divide, insufficient hardware, and limited internet access still need to be addressed. Full article

This article discusses a method for analyzing the layered structure of soil using the phase-metric method of geoelectric monitoring to ensure the reliability of a railway track. The importance of monitoring soil layers for timely detection of changes that may affect the stability and safety of railway tracks is emphasized. The use of geophysical monitoring methods, such as phase monitoring of the geoelectric signals, allows us to optimize measures to strengthen the roadway and increase its durability. The present article describes laboratory experiments in which a specialized setup was created to simulate the process of drilling through various soil layers. Geoelectric methods involving the registration of phase characteristics of the electromagnetic field were used in an experimental setup. The experiments demonstrated the effectiveness of the phase-metric method for determining the characteristics of the layered structure of the soil. The results showed that the change in the phase of the signal recorded at the receiving electrodes can be used to identify different soil layers with different electrical characteristics, such as moisture and density. The method of modeling the physical and geological environment using equivalent circuits of elements in the form of a dielectric made it possible to more accurately analyze the electrical properties of the soil. Based on the obtained data, an automatic monitoring system was developed using recurrent neural networks (RNNs), in particular long short-term memory (LSTM) networks, for automatic detection of bends and transitions in signal time series. Evaluation of the model’s effectiveness showed high accuracy in identifying layers, which contributes to increasing the reliability and efficiency of monitoring the condition of the railway track. Full article

Background and Objective: Buprenorphine is an opioid drug indicated for the management of severe and persistent pain. The buprenorphine transdermal patch provides a non-invasive method of rate-controlled drug release, ensuring constant and predictable drug plasma levels over an extended period. This study aimed to assess the bioequivalence, skin adhesion non-inferiority, and tolerability of two buprenorphine transdermal patches to meet the regulatory requirements for the registration of a generic product in Brazil. Methods: A randomized, single-dose, two-period, two-sequence crossover trial was performed involving healthy subjects of both genders. The subjects received a single dose of either the test formulation or the reference formulation (Restiva^®), separated by a 29-day washout period. For pharmacokinetic analysis, blood samples were collected up to 12 days post-dose and quantified using a validated bioanalytical method. Skin adhesion was assessed over a 7-day period (dosing interval) following patch application. Seventy-six subjects were enrolled and fifty-two completed the study. Results and Conclusion: The 90% confidence intervals for Cmax, AUC_0–t, and partial AUCs were within the acceptable bioequivalence limits of 80 to 125%. Adhesion comparison showed the non-inferiority of the test formulation. Based on ANVISA’s regulatory requirements, the test and reference formulations were considered bioequivalent and could be interchangeable in clinical practice. Full article

This work presents two pre-processing patches to automatically correct the residual local misalignment of datasets acquired by very/extremely high resolution (VHR/EHR) satellite multispectral (MS) scanners, one for, e.g., GeoEye-1 and Pléiades, featuring two separate instruments for MS and panchromatic (Pan) data, the other for WorldView-2/3 featuring three instruments, two of which are visible and near-infra-red (VNIR) MS scanners. The misalignment arises because the two/three instruments onboard GeoEye-1 / WorldView-2 (four onboard WorldView-3) share the same optics and, thus, cannot have parallel optical axes. Consequently, they image the same swath area from different positions along the orbit. Local height changes (hills, buildings, trees, etc.) originate local shifts among corresponding points in the datasets. The latter would be accurately aligned only if the digital elevation surface model were known with sufficient spatial resolution, which is hardly feasible everywhere because of the extremely high resolution, with Pan pixels of less than 0.5 m. The refined co-registration is achieved by injecting the residue of the multivariate linear regression of each scanner towards lowpass-filtered Pan. Experiments with two and three instruments show that an almost perfect alignment is achieved. MS pansharpening is also shown to greatly benefit from the improved alignment. The proposed alignment procedures are real-time, fully automated, and do not require any additional or ancillary information, but rely uniquely on the unimodality of the MS and Pan sensors. Full article

The Microwave Radiation Imager (MWRI) onboard the FengYun satellite plays a crucial role in global change monitoring and numerical weather prediction. Estimating and correcting geolocation errors are important to retrieving accurate geophysical variables. However, the instantaneous field of view (IFOV) inter-channel deviation, which is mainly caused by the structure mounting error and measurement error of feedhorns, is less studied. In this present study, we constructed a general theoretical model to automatically estimate the IFOV inter-channel deviations suitable for conical-scanning instruments. The model can automatically detect the along-track and across-track vectors that pass through the land–sea boundary points and are perpendicular to the actual coastlines. Regarding the midpoints of the vectors as the brightness temperature (Tb) inflection points, the IFOV inter-channel deviation is the pixel offset or distance of the maximum gradients of the Tb near the inflection points for each channel relative to the 89-GHz V-pol channel. We tested the model’s operational performance using the FY-3G/MWRI-Rainfall Mission (MWRI-RM) observations. Considering that parameter uploading adjusted the IFOV inter-channel deviations, the model’s validity was verified by comparing the adjustments calculated by the model with the theoretical changes caused by parameter uploading. The result shows that the differences between them for all window channels are less than 100 m, indicating the model’s effectiveness in evaluating the IFOV inter-channel deviation for the MWRI-RM. Furthermore, the estimated on-orbit IFOV inter-channel deviations for the MWRI-RM show that all channel deviations are less than 1 km, meeting the instrument’s design requirement of 2 km. We believe this study will provide a foundation for IFOV inter-channel registration of passive microwave payloads and spatial matching of multiple payloads. Full article