bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Clinical Leadership Experience of Dental Hygienists Participating in Preventaion based Incremental Oral Health Care Project: Applying Focus Group Interviews
Authors: Lee Hyo-Jin , Bae Soo-Myoung , Shin Bo-Mi
Published: September 2023

Objectives: This study aimed to specifically identify and explore the clinical leadership experience of clinical dental hygienists. Methods: The study subjects were 5 dental hygienists who participated in a prevention-based incremental oral health care program operated by some dental clinics. Focus group interviews were conducted with the study subjects; all the content from the interviews was recorded and transcribed, and a qualitative analysis was conducted based on thematic analysis. Results: The clinical leadership experienced by them was shown as skills and competencies to lead the organizational change of the dental team and the patient’s health change, and to take the lead in the management and operation of dental clinics. They recognized that leadership can be better demonstrated when dental hygienists have work competencies, effective communication, and professional confidence, but it is difficult to demonstrate leadership qualities when experiencing work environments such as hierarchical peer relationships, excessive treatment, and emotional labor. Conclusions: The leadership competencies of dental hygienists can be a basis for explaining the role model of dental hygienists in the field of primary health care and dental care. Therefore, follow-up studies on the leadership behaviors used by dental hygienists need to be conducted, and the leadership capabilities of dental hygienists and dental hygiene students need to be developed and applied.
Decolonial Reproductive Justice: Analyzing Reproductive Oppression in India
Authors: Rajat Sanjula , McLaren Margaret A.
Published: September 2023

Abstract: The reproductive justice framework shifted understandings and analyses of reproductive oppression beyond individual 'choice' by incorporating analyses of structural injustice, racism, and social and economic concerns. In this article, we build on understandings of the reproductive justice framework by integrating a postcolonial lens and bring the powerful conceptual tools of postcolonial feminist theory to bear on issues of reproductive oppression in India. We articulate the elements of such a postcolonial lens—the transnational operation of race, Orientalism, the subjective experience of colonialism as well as the role of the nation-state and nationalism in shaping reproductive lives—and demonstrate how these elements, along with religion, caste, and right-wing Hindu fundamentalism, structure reproductive oppression in India. Through our discussion of the issues of sterilization, sex-selective abortion, and commercial surrogacy in India we reveal how the underlying coloniality of Malthusian ideas of controlling population to reduce poverty, Orientalist and racist tropes of moral and intellectual inferiority and sexual licentiousness, and the Orientalist and colonial framing of the "East" as backward, uncivilized, and dependent clearly shape reproductive issues in India. Offering a nuanced analysis of the heterogeneity of reproductive oppression within India, our discussion brings reproductive justice into conversation with a feminist postcolonial perspective to foreground the continued impact of colonialism, neo-colonialism, and settler colonialism on reproductive oppression.
The Albany Birth Justice Storytelling Project: Integrating Feminist Pedagogy into Research Design
Authors: Bhatia Rajani , Valdez Sarah , Blaise Chloe , Kalu Ola , Ramsawak Jessica
Published: September 2023

Abstract: Birth justice is a vibrant, national movement in the United States, which has motivated synergistic action at the local level. This article discusses a community-based participatory research (CBPR) project in Albany, New York with a significant feminist pedagogical component. The Albany Birth Justice Storytelling project formed through collaboration between a community birth justice organization and the University at Albany. Inspired by a combined focus on birth and research justice approaches, we adapted photo-voice and transformative storytelling to co-create qualitative data in the form of a video narrative on local experiences of "birthing while Black." Our stories echo themes documented by birth justice scholar-activists elsewhere in the country including racism within clinical settings. The research promoted self-reflective, trauma-informed education and care among co-researchers including University at Albany students and storytellers from Albany County. Feminist pedagogy contributed to two goals of CBPR: equalizing power differentials and enhancing mutual learning between university and community.
"It Came, Over and Over, Down to This: What Made Someone a Mother?": A Reproductive Justice Analysis of Little Fires Everywhere
Authors: McKee Kimberly D. , Gibney Shannon
Published: September 2023

Abstract: Ideologies of motherhood reflect the complexities and contradictions of what it means to be seen as a worthy parent—someone who deserves to care for children—in contrast to those deemed unworthy or undesirable. The family is a site of contestation when accounting for the ways maternalism and white supremacy affect racialized family systems in the lives of people of color in white American suburbia. In a critical engagement with the 2017 novel Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng and the 2020 Hulu -released series by the same name, this essay reveals the contours of non-normative kinship formations, including surrogacy and adoption. These kinship ties demonstrate the tensions of motherhood as a gendered, raced, and classed phenomena. A reproductive justice framework reveals the way Little Fires Everywhere —the novel and the series—demonstrate the legibility and legitimacy of some families over others in exploring the contingencies of kinship.
Effects of Subcontracting on Firms in India's Informal Manufacturing Sector: An Empirical Investigation
Authors: Gupta Srishti
Published: September 2023

ABSTRACT: Subcontracting occurs when a producer outsources a part of its production. We study the effect of subcontracting from a firm with buyer power on the profits of subcontracted upstream firms, and how profits vary on the basis of location of firm and owner's gender. Subcontracting is the treatment in our study and the dependent variable is the ratio of Gross Value Added to Sales adjusted or unadjusted for wages. The decision of a firm to subcontract or not is endogenous, so we cannot use OLS regression. Since we cannot have information on a firm being treated and non-treated at the same time, we use the Average Treatment Effect on Treated (ATET) model with Nearest Neighborhood Matching (NNM) approach, in which each treated firm is matched to an untreated firm which is its nearest neighbor on other parameters, to see the effect of treatment on outcome variable on the treated group had they been not treated. We find the existence of a subcontracting premium where being in a subcontracting relationship is beneficial for the informal sector firm, though the magnitude of this premium is small, and female-headed firms gain less from subcontracting. Subcontracted male-owned firms earn a higher premium but also pay more wages out of their total revenue to labor as compared to female-owned firms, perhaps because the latter are more likely to be Own Account Manufacturing Enterprises (OAME) which do not employ hired workers. Our results show that buyer power of the subcontracting firms is offset by the benefits they provide to the subcontracted firms, possibly in the form of assured demand and payments. Thus, policies favoring the informal sector firms need to incorporate the benefits of subcontracting by exploring alternative modes of distribution with lower distribution margins, such as cooperative societies or online platforms for example Amul, MEESHO. Policies should also focus on reducing the profit margin differential between male and female owned firms by formulating a proper channel using mass media to communicate credit information and updates.
Testing Okun's Law Over the Business Cycle: The Case of South Africa
Authors: Raifu Isiaka Akande , Aminu Alarudeen
Published: September 2023

ABSTRACT: Understanding the relationship between output and unemployment (Okun's law) is important for policymakers, particularly during crises. One of the aspects of Okun's law that is commonly examined during crises is the structural stability and behavior of Okun's law over the business cycle. While this issue has been addressed empirically in developed countries, little is known about it in developing countries such as South Africa. Hence, this study examines the structural stability and behavior of Okun's law over the business cycle in South Africa. This study adopts both the difference and gap methods of formalizing Okun's law to implement its objectives. The recursive rolling window method was used to test the structural stability of Okun's law over time. The behavior of Okun's law over the business cycle is examined using the Markov-switching regression method. This study was conducted using the data from 1994Q1 to 2021Q1. The results of this study show that Okun's law varies over the business cycle because the response of unemployment to economic expansion is quite different from that of economic contraction. Okun's law holds during economic expansion but fails to hold during an economic recession. Evidence from this study also reveals that the coefficients of Okun's law vary over time. For instance, in the case of the difference method, Okun's coefficients range from 0.063 to 1.221 in absolute terms. For the gap method, especially when the H-P filtering method is applied, Okun's coefficients range from 0.509 to 9.412 in absolute terms. In summary, the findings from this study suggest that cyclical unemployment responds more significantly to cyclical output growth than the response of changes in unemployment to changes in output. In addition, this study proves that Okun's law is unstable over time in South Africa. These findings imply a high degree of variability between the labor and goods markets in the country. Hence, policies must be designed to harmonize the divergence between the two markets. This will require the implementation of macroeconomic policies such as fiscal and monetary policies. From a fiscal policy perspective, the government should reduce taxes or provide tax holidays to firms. The interest rate should be set low in the case of monetary policy.
Export Spillovers from Foreign Direct Investment in Kenya's Manufacturing Sector: A Double Hurdle Approach
Authors: Ombuki Wycliff Mariga , Kinuthia Bethuel Kinyanjui , Abala Daniel Okado
Published: September 2023

ABSTRACT: This paper investigates export spillovers from foreign direct investment on the exporting activities of domestic manufacturing firms in Kenya. Specifically, the paper aims at identifying the transmission channels through which foreign direct investment affects the export propensity and export intensity decisions of domestically-owned firms. The study also examines the importance of firm-level heterogeneity on the occurrence and behavior of spillover channels. The study uses a panel data set for manufacturing firms in Kenya, obtained from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys, conducted in three waves covering the period 2007–2018. Employing the Double-Hurdle model approach, and using the maximum likelihood estimation technique, we empirically demonstrate the relevance and significance of distinguishing three channels for intra-industry (horizontal) spillovers – demonstration effects, information effects and competition effects channels and one channel for vertical spillovers, that is, backward linkage channel. Findings of this study shows that domestically-owned firms in Kenya experience significant positive export spillovers on their export participation decisions through the demonstration effects channel and significant negative spillovers via the competition effects channel. The findings also show significant positive export spillover effects on the export intensity decisions of domestically-owned firms via information and competition effects channels and significant negative export spillover effects via the backward linkages channel. The results further provide evidence that firms belonging to industries with low technological levels were unable to absorb spillover benefits from foreign presence via the demonstration effects channel. The results also indicate that small and medium firms were unable to reap export spillovers benefits via information effects and backward linkage channels. The findings have important policy implications for managers of firms and policymakers in Kenya and other developing countries. To enhance export-related spillover benefits, domestic firms need to enhance their absorptive capacities by upgrading their technical capacities and improving quality standards. Governments should facilitate the exchange of information on investor needs, their capacities and skills requirements, thus bridging information gaps between domestic suppliers and foreign investors in addition to supporting domestic market linkages.
Financial Inclusion and its Determinants: Empirical Evidence from South Asia
Authors: Hoque Rezwanul , Hossain Sharif M. , Siddique Nur-E-Alom
Published: September 2023

ABSTRACT: South Asia, the home to around one-fourth of the world's total population, and the fastest-growing region of the world, achieved an annual average GDP growth rate of 6.6 percent in 2015–2019. During the same period, it also demonstrated a modest share of gross domestic savings and fixed capital formation to GDP. The region has also experienced a considerable success in improving its level of financial inclusion. Within a span of only six years, the number of adults having an account in a formal financial institution increased to 38 percentage points in 2017, though large heterogeneity across countries exists. Despite these economic and financial developments, around half of the world's multidimensionally poor people live in this region. The region is also relatively less inclusive than those of high-income countries, as it excluded 30 percent of its adult population from the formal financial system in 2017. To accelerate its ongoing economic development and poverty reduction, further improvement of the level of financial inclusion is a particular concern in South Asia. However, we know very little about factors influencing financial inclusion in this region. In this paper, we examine the determinants of financial inclusion in South Asia using the World Bank's Global Findex database for the year 2017. Our probit estimations show that being a male, richer, more educated, and older are associated with higher levels of formal account and formal saving. While age and education affect formal credit in a similar manner, we find no significant association between gender and income level with formal credit. We also investigate how individual characteristics are associated with the barriers to financial inclusion and find that women exclude themselves from financial inclusion because other family member might have an account. Documentation and having accounts by other family members are the main factors of financial exclusion of the younger people, while cost and religious reasons discourage older people from having a bank account. Finally, we compare the determinants of informal financial services with those of formal financial services. Our findings have certain policy implications to include financially excluded people, i.e. poor, less educated, youth, and women, into financial network vis-à-vis promoting financial inclusion in South Asia.
Tax Reforms, Structural Breaks, and Dynamics of Tax Revenue in Fiji
Authors: Sami Janesh
Published: September 2023

ABSTRACT: The changing dynamics of tax revenue and its responses to domestic and external shocks play a pivotal role in the discussion of the sustainability of public finance in small developing economies. However, the empirical literature on the response of tax revenue to various shocks in developing economies in the Pacific is sparse. Despite several tax reforms over the last decade, the spending plans of the Fijian government since the 2017/2018 budget announcements have stimulated frequent public discussions regarding the sustainability of public debt. Against this background, the main purpose of this paper is to investigate the response of tax revenue in Fiji - a small developing island economy, to external and domestic shocks using historical annual data covering more than five decades. This study uses unit root tests that account for single and multiple endogenous structural breaks and finds that tax revenue in Fiji is a non-stationary process, I (1) with break dates coinciding with tax reforms, general elections, and political coups. The findings reveal that tax reforms and political developments are possible important sources of shocks to tax revenue and have important policy implications. First, shocks to tax revenue will have persistent effects, with the effects of adverse shocks being transmitted to other related variables and sectors of the Fijian economy. Second, historical values of tax revenue cannot be used to formulate forecasts of tax revenue and policymakers should consider other determinants of tax revenue (for example, the share of the agriculture sector, trade volume, political stability, education, life expectancy, infant mortality rates, age composition of the population, urbanization, inflation rate, and corruption) for forecasting purposes. The evidence of non-stationarity indicates that future studies on tax revenue need to carefully reflect on the modeling technique to avoid spurious regressions. Furthermore, our findings reveal that temporary fiscal measures will not have a permanent effect on tax revenue and sustainable revenue growth requires focusing on long-term (rather than short-sighted) reforms. Thus, our findings underscore the importance of evidence-based policy reforms to improve the resilience, efficiency, and sustainability of the tax system in Fiji to shelter it from future adverse shocks.
Measuring the Impact of COVID-19 on Tourism Entrepreneurs and Businesses in Greece: Some Empirical Evidence
Authors: Gaby Gavriilidis , Metaxas Theodore
Published: September 2023

ABSTRACT: The aim of this study was to measure the impacts of COVID-19 on tourism entrepreneurs and business owners in Greece. For that purpose, electronic questionnaires were distributed to 548 tourism professionals coming from the domestic hotel, culinary, and travel agencies sectors. Furthermore, responses came from almost all the major tourist destinations of the country. The analysis of the data included several statistical techniques such as Factor Analysis, Parametric Tests (Independent T-tests and one-way ANOVA), Mediation and Bootstrap analyses. The results indicated that COVID-19 is expected to reshape Greece's tourism model, calling authorities to apply certain development policies for limiting the negative consequences of the new virus in the domestic tourism sector and in the national economy in general. Moreover, the impact of COVID-19 is differentiated on a firm and on a personal level. Firstly, small firms that operate in the culinary sector were more vulnerable to the effects of the pandemic. Likewise, persons with lower educational backgrounds and women were also more impacted by COVID-19 outbreak. In this context, policies for recovery should focus in reducing inequalities in the domestic tourism industry and strengthening social cohesion, moving towards more sustainable tourism models. The results are expected to help tourism authorities and local actors in Greece to take measures and apply policies for addressing effectively the problems that occurred in the domestic tourism industry due to the COVID-19 outbreak, aiming to enhance sustainability in the sector. Considering the importance that tourism plays for the Greek economy in terms of employment and turnover, addressing the problems of the pandemic gains growing importance. Lastly, the problems that arise from the research, which concern tourism professionals will assist state authorities to take immediate measures to support entrepreneurship and to ensure that tourism will remain the most dynamic sector of the Greek economy in the post-COVID-19 era.
Forecasting Tourism Demand for Medical Services
Authors: Thomakos Dimitrios D. , Ioakimidis Marilou , Eleftheriou Konstantinos
Published: September 2023

ABSTRACT: Medical tourism is considered nowadays as a multi-billion industry which can promote a country's economic growth. Therefore, forecasting the scheduled tourism demand for medical services is of great importance for policy makers. Doing so, however, is not an easy task due to the following reasons: Data on medical tourism are (i) not easily accessible; (ii) not typically distinguished from tourists' non-scheduled (unintentional) use of a country's medical services; and (iii) usually not publicly available for long time periods. In this paper, we present a novel way to forecast tourism demand (intentional and unintentional) foro medical services —a rough but informative proxy of medical tourism— using limited data. To perform the analysis, we use data on the percentage of hospital discharges of non-residents for 17 European countries over the period 2008-2019 retrieved from Eurostat. Our methodological approach is based on a forecasting technique recently developed by Kyriazi, Thomakos and Guerard ; the adaptive learning forecasting. According to this method, MSE (Mean Squared Error)-performance enhancements can be achieved using any forecast as input —as long as that input is not a 'perfect' forecast— by learning from past forecast errors. Within this context, even the most basic forecast, the no-change or naïve forecast, can be used as input to the adaptive learning procedure. Kyriazi, Thomakos and Guerard approach is very well suited to our research question because (i) the no-change forecast is a natural candidate in a short time series where models cannot be estimated with sufficient accuracy, (ii) the no-change forecast is obviously far from being the 'perfect' forecast, and (iii) the adaptive learning process can be initialized by the no-change forecast and then learn by its own past forecast errors. Our results show that adaptive learning forecasting leads to performance enhancements that range from the 5% to more than 20% relative to the no-change benchmark. This finding indicates the efficiency of the adaptive learning method in forecasting medical tourism demand; an important subcategory of tourism demand for which data are not easily accessible and freely available historical data are existing for short time periods.
DCPNet: a dual-channel parallel deep neural network for high quality computer-generated holography
Authors: Liu Qingwei , Chen Jing , Qiu Bingsen , Wang Yongtian , Liu Juan
Published: September 2023

Recent studies have demonstrated that a learning-based computer-generated hologram (CGH) has great potential for real-time, high-quality holographic displays. However, most existing algorithms treat the complex-valued wave field as a two-channel spatial domain image to facilitate mapping onto real-valued kernels, which does not fully consider the computational characteristics of complex amplitude. To address this issue, we proposed a dual-channel parallel neural network (DCPNet) for generating phase-only holograms (POHs), taking inspiration from the double phase amplitude encoding method. Instead of encoding the complex-valued wave field in the SLM plane as a two-channel image, we encode it into two real-valued phase elements. Then the two learned sub-POHs are sampled by the complementary 2D binary grating to synthesize the desired POH. Simulation and optical experiments are carried out to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method. The simulation results indicate that the DCPNet is capable of generating high-fidelity 2k POHs in 36 ms. The optical experiments reveal that the DCPNet has excellent ability to preserve finer details, suppress speckle noise and improve uniformity in the reconstructed images.
Evaluating a large language model’s ability to solve programming exercises from an introductory bioinformatics course
Authors: Piccolo Stephen R. , Denny Paul , Luxton-Reilly Andrew , Payne Samuel H. , Ridge Perry G.
Published: September 2023

Computer programming is a fundamental tool for life scientists, allowing them to carry out essential research tasks. However, despite various educational efforts, learning to write code can be a challenging endeavor for students and researchers in life-sciences disciplines. Recent advances in artificial intelligence have made it possible to translate human-language prompts to functional code, raising questions about whether these technologies can aid (or replace) life scientists’ efforts to write code. Using 184 programming exercises from an introductory-bioinformatics course, we evaluated the extent to which one such tool—OpenAI’s ChatGPT—could successfully complete programming tasks. ChatGPT solved 139 (75.5%) of the exercises on its first attempt. For the remaining exercises, we provided natural-language feedback to the model, prompting it to try different approaches. Within 7 or fewer attempts, ChatGPT solved 179 (97.3%) of the exercises. These findings have implications for life-sciences education and research. Instructors may need to adapt their pedagogical approaches and assessment techniques to account for these new capabilities that are available to the general public. For some programming tasks, researchers may be able to work in collaboration with machine-learning models to produce functional code.
Spatio-temporal evolution of acoustic emission events and initiation of stress fields in the fracturing of rock mass around a roadway under cyclic high-stress loading
Authors: Lei Gang , Wu Dawei , Zhu Shengyan
Published: September 2023

To study fracture mechanisms and initiation of stress fields in the rock mass around a roadway subjected to cyclic stress, a series of loading and unloading tests were conducted on the rock mass around the roadway by using high-precision acoustic emission (AE) monitoring. The results show that intense AE activities occur in a specimen during cyclic load-holding at different levels. With the increase in the number of cycles, the overall stability of the specimen gradually decreases. In the cyclic loading and unloading process, the specimen exhibits a Kaiser effect. As the number of cycles increases, more AE events occur in the unloading stage and a Felicity effect is manifest. The spatial distribution of AE events is related to the stress regime and structure of the specimen, crack propagation in the roadway exhibits directionality due to effects of the principal stress. High stress is conducive to microcrack initiation and propagation in the specimen, which accelerates damage accumulation and macrofracture formation in a rock mass. The research provides a reference for roadway support work and disaster prevention and control in deep mines.
The COVID-19 and chloroquine infodemic: Cross-sectional observational study of content analysis on YouTube
Authors: Poncelet Cynthia , Porcher Raphaël , Nguyen Yên-Lan
Published: September 2023

The objective of this study is to evaluate the association between quality and features related to internet users of the most viewed YouTube videos about COVID-19 and chloroquine, during the first wave of the pandemic. We conducted a cross-sectional observational study focusing on the most viewed YouTube videos on COVID-19 and chloroquine treatment, in French and English. The primary outcome was the association between video quality as assessed by DISCERN and modified JAMA scores, and video features related to internet users as assessed by number of viewership and likes. By June 2020, 168 videos accumulating more than 57 million views and nearly 2 million reactions from Internet users, were included. Most of the videos did not support or oppose the treatment and came from news channels (N = 100; 60%). Videos taking sides were mostly pro-chloroquine (N = 69; 89%). The number of non-factual videos analyzed was very low (N = 3; 2%). The quality of the videos was average (mean DISCERN score = 2.4 (DS 1.0) and mean modified JAMA score = 2.6 (DS 0.6)) and declined over time. The best quality videos were those published by health care professionals or those from educational channels. Most experts interviewed were men (N = 136; 81%). More than 1 in 5 videos featured a political figure (N = 35; 21%), and these were mostly pro-chloroquine with lower DISCERN or modified JAMA scores (p<0.001). We found an association between the number of likes and the quality of the videos evaluated by the DISCERN score (rho = 0.29; p<0.001) and the modified JAMA score (rho = 0.30; p<0.001). The association observed between the quality of the videos and the number of likes suggests a better health literacy and critical thinking of lay internet users. Although YouTube has become a major player in the dissemination of medical information, more involvement of health professionals and governmental organizations is needed.
GuaRD: Guaranteed robustness of image retrieval system under data distortion turbulence
Authors: Chung Hyerin , Lee Nakyung , Lee Hansol , Cho Youngsun , Woo Jihwan
Published: September 2023

Image search systems could be endangered by adversarial attacks and data perturbations. The image retrieval system can be compromised either by distorting the query or hacking the ranking system. However, existing literature primarily discusses attack methods, whereas the research on countermeasures to defend against such adversarial attacks is rare. As a defense mechanism against the intrusions, quality assessment can complement existing image retrieval systems. “GuaRD” is proposed as an end-to-end framework that uses the quality metric as a weighted-regularization term. Proper utilization and balance of the two features could lead to reliable and robust ranking; the original image is assigned a higher rank while the distorted image is assigned a relatively lower rank. Meanwhile, the primary goal of the image retrieval system is to prioritize searching the relevant images. Therefore, the use of leveraged features should not compromise the accuracy of the system. To evaluate the generality of the framework, we conducted three experiments on two image quality assessment(IQA) benchmarks (Waterloo and PieAPP). For the first two tests, GuaRD achieved enhanced performance than the existing model: the mean reciprocal rank(mRR) value of the original image predictions increased by 61%, and the predictions for the distorted input query decreased by 18%. The third experiment was conducted to analyze the mean average precision (mAP) score of the system to verify the accuracy of the retrieval system. The results indicated little deviation in performance between the tested methods, and the score was not effected or slightly decreased by 0.9% after the GuaRD was applied. Therefore, GuaRD is a novel and robust framework that can act as a defense mechanism for data distortions.
The effect of nature exposure on pain experience and quality of life in patients with chronic pain: A systematic review and meta-analysis protocol
Authors: Lee Matthew J. , Pradeep Aishwarya , Lobner Katie , Badaki-Makun Oluwakemi
Published: September 2023

Background

Chronic pain is a complex condition with short and long-term effects on physical and psychosocial health. Nature exposure therapy has been investigated as a potential non-pharmacological intervention to improve physical and emotional health of individuals with chronic pain. This proposed systematic review aims to examine the effects of nature exposure therapy on pain experience and quality of life in patients with chronic pain.

Methods

Studies will be identified by searching the MEDLINE, Embase and Cumulative Index for Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) databases. All included studies will be required to be interventional controlled trials comparing nature exposure therapy to placebo or standard care in patients with chronic pain. Primary outcomes for this review will be pain intensity and quality of life scores. Secondary outcomes will include self-efficacy, depression and pain-related anxiety scores. If 2 or more studies are included, results will be pooled for meta-analysis. If meta-analysis is not possible, the results will be presented in a narrative form.

Discussion

Given the adverse effects of opioid use, non-pharmacological interventions are a necessary alternative to treat patients with chronic pain. Nature exposure therapy is an intriguing example of such an intervention. We hope that this systematic review will guide future clinical decision-making for patients with chronic pain and provide evidence for or against the need for natural spaces and improved urban planning.

Trial registration

PROSPERO registration number: CRD42021226949.
Midwife or doctor leader to implement a national guideline in babies on postnatal wards (DesIGN): A cluster-randomised, controlled, trial
Authors: Alsweiler Jane M. , Crowther Caroline A. , Harding Jane E.
Published: September 2023

The aim of this trial was to determine if midwives or doctor leaders are more effective at implementing a clinical practice guideline for oral dextrose gel to treat neonatal hypoglycaemia. This was a cluster-randomised, controlled, trial. New Zealand maternity hospitals were randomised to guideline implementation by a midwife or doctor implementation leader. The primary outcome was the change in the proportion of hypoglycaemic babies (blood glucose concentration <2.6 mmol/L in the first 48 hours after birth), treated with dextrose gel from before, to three months after, implementation. Twenty-one maternity hospitals that cared for babies at risk of hypoglycaemia consented to participate, of which 15 treated babies with hypoglycaemia at both time points (7 randomised to midwifery led, 8 randomised to doctor led implementation). The primary outcome included 463 hypoglycaemic babies (292 midwifery led, 171 doctor led implementation). There was no difference in the primary outcome between hospitals randomised to midwifery or doctor led implementation (proportion treated with gel, mean(SD); midwifery led: before 71 (38)%, 3 months after 87 (12)%; doctor led: before 63 (43)%, 3 months after 86 (16)%; adjusted mean change in proportion (95%CI); 19.3% (-4.5–43.1), p = 0.11). There was an increase in the proportion of eligible babies treated with oral dextrose gel from before to 3 months after implementation of the guideline (122/153 (80%) v 144/163 (88%), OR (95%CI); 3.42 (1.67–6.98), p<0.001). Implementation of a clinical practice guideline improved uptake of oral dextrose gel. There was no evidence of a difference between midwife and doctor implementation leaders for implementing this guideline for treatment of hypoglycaemic babies. The trial was prospectively registered on the ISRCTN registry on the 20/05/2015 (ISRCTN61154098).
Soil biological activity after a sixty-year fertilization practice in a wheat-maize crop rotation
Authors: Füzy Anna , Parádi István , Kelemen Bettina , Kovács Ramóna , Cseresnyés Imre , Szili-Kovács Tibor , Árendás Tamás , Fodor Nándor , Takács Tünde
Published: September 2023

This study aimed to survey the long-term effects of fertilization practices on the functional diversity of the soil microbiota. A 60-year fertilization experiment with mineral fertilizers, farmyard manure and combined treatments was sampled in two consecutive years in maize (Zea mays L.) and wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). Soil chemical properties, plant growth and physiological parameters were measured. The MicroRespTM method was applied to assess the community level physiological profiles (CLPPs) of the rhizosphere soil, and the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal (AMF) colonization of the roots was determined. Samples were taken in the early vegetative stages, at flowering, and at harvest in both years. The measured parameters were analysed using multifactorial ANOVA to determine treatment effects, crop-dependent differences, and seasonality. PCA analysis was performed on the data matrix to reveal more complex correspondences, and Pearson’s product-moment correlation was used to confirm relationships between some of the measured soil and plant parameters. Fertilization treatments caused long-term changes in some biological parameters such as: MicroRespTM parameters, citrate utilization, total substrate-induced respiration value, and the ratio of utilization of amino acids and sugars. The rate of AMF colonization responded mainly to the plant nutrition status and the plant requirements, suggesting a plant-mediated effect in the case of mycorrhiza. Mineral nitrogen fertilization and soil acidification were found to be the main factors affecting the catabolic activity of soil microbiota, while AMF colonization responded to the balance of plant nutrition.
Microbial Production of Biopolymer Polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB): Current Challenges and its Application
Authors: Preethi Rathna R , KULANDHAIVEL M.
Published: September 2023

Plastics are suitable for many industrial applications as they are inexpensive, sturdy, resistant to deterioration and highly versatile. Asadvantageous as plastics made from petroleum are, it remains the most major topic of concern among environmentalists and the scientists. Polyhydroxyalkanoates are biodegradable polyesters produced by a wide range of microbes as a source of energy for metabolism, carbon, and oxidoreduction; since they exhibit some properties, which are remarkably similar to those of polyolefins derived from fossil fuels. he literature review conducted over the past decade reveals that polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) has the potential physical qualities for food packaging material, single-use plastic goods and medicinal sectors. Polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) is a bacterial biopolymer that has begun to replace petrochemical plastics due to the present trend towards the efficient utilisation of relatively cheaper substrates for its production. This review discusses explicitly the developments in the analysis of microbial biopolymer PHB and additionally provides an outline of current industrial applications, Production, Extraction methods, genes involved, microbes that are capable of producing PHB, challenges faced during production and degradation of PHB.
N-Heterocyclic Analogs: A New Prospect in Cancer Therapy
Authors: VARSHNEY SHRUTI , TIWARI ABHISHEK , MISHRA RAKHI
Published: September 2023

One of the serious problems in the healthcare industry is cancer. In today’s scenario, a lot of anticancer medications are available in themarket, but they are not specific for specific cancer or have poor safety value, adverse effects and high resistance. Therefore, the designing of safer and more focused anticancer medications is essential. In today’s situation, more than 85% of all medications with good physiological activity are heterocyclic compounds with one or more heteroatoms in the aromatic structure. The most common aromatic moieties that have the highest prevalence in anticancer medication are nitrogen-containing heterocycles. The information about the synthesis and anticancer activity of various N-containing derivatives, such as pyridine, pyrimidine, carbazole, indole, imidazole, benzimidazole, quinoline, isatin, pyrazole and triazole, has been summarized which directly indicates their anticancer potentiality against different types of cancer. The study also showed that in contrast to other substituents, the substitution of electron-withdrawing groups on the heterocyclic Ncontaining moiety has greater anticancer action. The information in this work might serve as a model for future investigations into the production and anticancer properties of novel N-containing heterocyclic compounds.
Evaluating Surface Mesh Reconstruction Using Real Data
Authors: Marchand Yanis , Caraffa Laurent , Sulzer Raphael , Clédat Emmanuel , Vallet Bruno
Published: September 2023

Surface reconstruction has been studied thoroughly, but very little work has been done to address its evaluation. In this article, we propose new visibility-based metrics to assess the completeness and accuracy of three-dimensional meshes based on a point cloud of higher accuracy than
the one from which the reconstruction has been computed. We use the position from which each high-quality point has been acquired to compute the corresponding ray of free space. Based on the intersections between each ray and the reconstructed surface, our metrics allow evaluating both the
global coherency of the reconstruction and the accuracy at close range. We validate this evaluation protocol by surveying several open-source algorithms as well as a piece of licensed software on three data sets. The results confirm the relevance of assessi ng local and global accuracy separately
since algorithms sometimes fail at guaranteeing both simultaneously. In addition, algorithms making use of sensor positions perform better than the ones relying only on points and normals, indicating a potentially significant added value of this piece of information. Our implementation is
available at https://github.com/umrlastig/SurfaceReconEval.
Mapping Lotus Wetland Distribution with the Phenology Normalized Lotus Index Using SAR Time-Series Imagery and the Phenology-Based Method
Authors: Wang Sheng , Wu Taixia , Shen Qiang
Published: September 2023

Lotus wetland is a type of wetland that can efficiently purify water. Therefore, rapid and accurate remote sensing monitoring of the distribution of lotus wetland has great significance to their conservation and the promotion of a sustainable and healthy development of ecosystems. The
phenology-based method has proven effective in mapping some different types of wetlands. However, because of the serious absence of remote sensing data caused by cloud coverage and the differences in the phenological rhythms of lotus wetlands in different areas, achieving high-precision mapping
of different regions using a unified approach is a challenge. To address the issue, this article proposes a Phenology Normalized Lotus Index (PNLI) model that combines SAR time-series imagery and the phenology-based method. The results of this study demonstrate that the PNLI model shows good
applicability in different areas and has high mapping accuracy. The model can map the lotus wetland distribu tion in large areas quickly and simultaneously with high precision.
Scholars and Literati at the Academy of Georgofili (1753 – 1800)
Authors: Clément Blandine , Zanardello Chiara
Published: September 2023

This note summarizes our research into the group of scholars and literati who were at the Academy of Georgofili in Florence from 1753 to 1800.
A Colonialidade do Conhecimento Científico
Authors: Mattos Hellen Cristina
Published: September 2023

A universidade é um espaço formativo que trabalha por três principais frentes: ensino, pesquisa e extensão. Apesar da produção de conhecimento ser gerada por diferentes formas entre essas três dimensões, o desenvolvimento científico foi historicamente alicerçado em perspectivas e definições específicas sobre o que é ciência. Este ensaio visa apresentar os fundamentos de dois elementos característicos do conhecimento científico, o método e a racionalidade, e a sua forma de imposição cultural, especialmente na produção científica. Para isso, foram levantadas as contribuições de René Descartes e Immanuel Kant sobre a importância do método e do uso da razão para o desenvolvimento da ciência. Logo após, foram consideradas discussões de Boaventura de Souza Santos e Jean-Marc Ela sobre esse modelo de ciência e a exclusão de outras formas de saberes. Também foram incluídas as propostas de Antonio Joaquim Severino e Manuel Tavares referentes à decolonialidade nas universidades latino-americanas. Concluímos que a universidade desempenha uma função colaborativa com a colonialidade, pois impõe e difunde apenas os conhecimentos que são considerados legítimos nos padrões ocidentais. É necessário, portanto, refletir as suas ações, concepções e propostas para desempenhar a consciência crítica e incluir a diversidade epistemológica existente na sociedade.
Personalized laboratory medicine in the digital health era: recent developments and future challenges
Authors: Coskun Abdurrahman , Lippi Giuseppe
Published: September 2023

Interpretation of laboratory data is a comparative procedure and requires reliable reference data, which are mostly derived from population data but used for individuals in conventional laboratory medicine. Using population data as a “reference” for individuals has generated several problems related to diagnosing, monitoring, and treating single individuals. This issue can be resolved by using data from individuals’ repeated samples, as their personal reference, thus needing that laboratory data be personalized. The modern laboratory information system (LIS) can store the results of repeated measurements from millions of individuals. These data can then be analyzed to generate a variety of personalized reference data sets for numerous comparisons. In this manuscript, we redefine the term “personalized laboratory medicine” as the practices based on individual-specific samples and data. These reflect their unique biological characteristics, encompassing omics data, clinical chemistry, endocrinology, hematology, coagulation, and within-person biological variation of all laboratory data. It also includes information about individuals’ health behavior, chronotypes, and all statistical algorithms used to make precise decisions. This approach facilitates more accurate diagnosis, monitoring, and treatment of diseases for each individual. Furthermore, we explore recent advancements and future challenges of personalized laboratory medicine in the context of the digital health era.
Examining Chinese University EFL Teachers’ Perceptions and Participation in an Academic Salon-Based Professional Learning Community
Authors: Wang Li , Zou Yihuan
Published: September 2023

In the last three decades, Professional learning communities (PLCs) have spread rapidly in different countries and contexts. While much is known about PLCs’ potential to enhance teachers’ professional learning, less is known about factors influencing teachers’ sustained participation and the process concerning how PLC was built at an early stage, especially in higher education in China. This study, conducted at the School of Foreign Languages in a key teacher education university in China, examined 17 university EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teachers’ perceptions of the value of academic salon-based PLC and the factors influencing their participation. Drawing on data from semi-structured interviews, the results showed that most participants embraced and appreciated the significant role of salon-based PLC in breaking a sense of isolation, enriching general knowledge in research and publication, and enhancing beliefs of the significance of research in professional development. However, how salons were implemented hindered teachers’ sustained participation. Factors at the individual level (i. e., low motivation, heavy workload, etc.) and the institutional level (i.e., non-collaborative culture, hierarchy, etc.) also exerted great influence on teachers’ sustained engagement. Implications for university teachers’ development in the context of PLCs were discussed.