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Translation and validation of the Birth Satisfaction Scale-Revised Indicator (BSS-RI) in Chinese
The perception of individuals with low back pain regarding reassuring information: Insights based on physiotherapists messages
Background Clinical guidelines for the management of low back pain (LBP) emphasize the importance of reassuring patients, as this reduces concern and increases confidence in recovery. Although physiotherapists (PTs) often use reassurance strategies, the perception of the different reassuring messages remains unclear. Objective To investigate perceptions of confidence of different reassurance messages delivered by PTs to people with LBP. Methods A survey was conducted among 544 participants with LBP. The survey included 21 reassuring messages divided into six themes ‘ Prevalence and statistics’, ‘Red flag’, ‘Natural healing’, ‘Imaging’, ‘Treatment strategies’, and ‘Pain physiology’ . Participants had to rate the extent to which each message increased their confidence using a 5-point Likert scale. Messages were categorized into four levels of perceived confidence based on participants’ responses: high (≥80% rated the message as ‘provide confidence’ or ‘significantly provide confidence’), moderate (60–79%), low (40–59%) and very low (≤40%). Correlation and non-parametric analyses examined the relationships between confidence ratings, demographic variables and personality traits. Results Messages that emphasized patient autonomy and the absence of red flags were perceived as particularly reassuring and received the highest ratings (≥80%). In contrast, messages that referred to natural healing and the neurophysiology of pain were perceived as less effective in providing confidence. Personality traits and background characteristics had minimal effects on perceived reassurance. Conclusions Reassuring communication that emphasizes patient autonomy and the low likelihood of serious pathology can boost confidence in individuals with LBP and may be more impactful than patient-specific characteristics. These findings may help PTs refine their communication strategies and strengthen therapeutic relationships, potentially leading to better treatment outcomes. Future research should explore the implications of these findings in clinical settings in real-life interactions.
How climate change and deforestation interact in the transformation of the Amazon rainforest
Author Correction: hsa_circ_0008305 facilitates the malignant progression of hepatocellular carcinoma by regulating AKR1C3 expression and sponging miR-379-5p
Phytochemical and pharmacoinformatics analysis of a traditional antipsoriatic oil formulation for its potential against proinflammatory cytokines TNF-α and IL-17A
Psoriasis, a persistent inflammatory condition with a complex origin, lacks a definitive cure despite the availability of diverse treatments. Vetpalai thailam (VT), a Siddha formulation, is commonly used for addressing various skin ailments. Analysis via GC-MS of a sample of VT oil unveiled the existence of 65 compounds. These identified phytochemical structures were then examined through molecular docking against the proinflammatory cytokines TNF-α and IL-17A, resulting in the shortlisting of seven compounds. Among these, four displayed binding potential against TNF-α, while three exhibited similar potential against IL-17A. Further, the individual shortlisted phytochemical and protein complexes were subjected to molecular dynamics and documented their RMSDs, RMSFs, SASA, Rg, MMPBSA, and PCA profiles. Other informatics web tools were employed to predict physicochemical properties, bioactivity, drug-likeness, and toxicity scores. Three compounds identified from VT oil displayed binding potential against IL-17A, showcasing binding energies varied between −8.427 and −6.739 kcal/mol, while four compounds exhibited potential against TNF-α, with binding energies ranging from −9.873 to −8.644 kcal/mol. The physicochemical attributes, bioactivity, compliance with Lipinski’s rule of five, and ADMET profiles of the shortlisted compounds demonstrated favorable pharmacokinetic characteristics. Consequently, this research provides valuable insights into the binding ability of phytoconstituents of VT oil against IL-17A and TNF-α, paving the way for the development of novel drugs for the treatment of psoriasis.
Plants with higher dispersal capabilities follow ‘abundant-centre’ distributions but such patterns remain rare in animals
Abstract The ‘abundant-centre’ hypothesis posits that a species’ abundance is highest at its range centre and declines towards its range edge. Recently, the hypothesis has been much debated, with supporting empirical evidence remaining limited. Here, we test the hypothesis on 3660 species using 5,703,589 abundance observations. We summarise species-level patterns and test the effects of dispersal-related species traits and phylogeny on abundance–distance relationships. Support for the hypothesis is dependent on taxonomic group, with abundant-centre patterns being more pronounced for plants but non-significant when summarised across all animals. Dispersal capability does not explain abundance–distance relationships in animals but likely explains abundance patterns in non-woody plants. Phylogeny improves models of abundance–distance patterns for plants but not for animals. Despite this, controlling for phylogeny yields non-significant group-level results for plants, suggesting that only certain, phylogenetically clustered plant groups may conform to abundant-centre patterns. Overall, we demonstrate that abundant-centre patterns are not a general ecological phenomenon; they tend to not apply to animals but can manifest in certain plant groups, depending on dispersal capabilities and evolutionary histories. Leveraging species’ traits that account for dispersal improves models of abundant-centre patterns across geographic space.
Haplotype shifts in the lipid-related OsGELP gene family underpin rice adaptation to high latitudes
Enhancing glioma immunohistochemical image classification through color deconvolution-aware prior guidance
Glioma diagnosis and prognosis heavily rely on immunohistochemistry (IHC), particularly CD34-stained images which highlight tumor vascular endothelial cells. However, traditional image analysis methods struggle with complex staining patterns and subtle morphological variations across glioma subtypes. In this study, we propose a novel Prior-Guided Enhancement Network (PGE-Net) that integrates domain-specific prior knowledge through color deconvolution to enhance feature representation of CD34-positive regions. Unlike existing approaches that treat all pixels equally, our model leverages color abnormality maps to emphasize diagnostically relevant staining patterns, thereby improving both interpretability and classification performance. Experimental evaluation on a curated glioma CD34 dataset demonstrates that PGE-Net achieves notable improvements over ResNet18 baselines, with Precision, Recall, and F1-score increased by 9.17%, 9.35%, and 12.35%, respectively. These results underscore the model’s potential for facilitating more accurate and interpretable IHC image analysis in clinical practice, ultimately supporting more personalized and efficient glioma treatment planning.
Salt-templated transformation of waste plastics into single-atom catalysts for environmental and energy applications
Body sizes of species determining the success of biological control in a three-level food chain
Retraction: Maintenance of Stemness in Oxaliplatin-Resistant Hepatocellular Carcinoma Is Associated with Increased Autocrine of IGF1
Object detection model of vehicle-road cooperative autonomous driving based on improved YOLO11 algorithm
The second survey of the Saudi Acute Myocardial Infarction Registry Program: Main results and temporal changes in care (STARS-2 program)
Background The Saudi Acute Myocardial Infarction Registry (STARS) program aims to evaluate the clinical characteristics, management, and outcomes of a representative sample of patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in Saudi Arabia. This second phase evaluates temporal changes in patient care, demographics, and the management benchmarks for AMI. Methods and findings We created a 5-year recurring, multi-center prospective registry that utilizes a snapshot design in 50 hospitals from various healthcare sectors in Saudi Arabia. The study’s recruitment phase spanned from September 3, 2021, to January 6, 2023. During these 16 months, 2,690 patients presenting with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) with or without ST-segment elevation (STEMI or NSTEMI, respectively) were enrolled. The mean age (± SD) of the overall population was 57 (±12.4) years, 70% were Saudi citizens, 82% were men, and (48.8%) of the total patients had STEMI. Fifty-eight percent of patients had diabetes mellitus and 58% had hypertension. Of the total population with STEMI, primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) was performed in 619 patients (47.1%), thrombolytics were given to 584 patients (44.5%), and 110 patients had no reperfusion (8.4%). Among patients who presented within 24 h of symptom onset, the door-to-balloon (DTB) time was 63 min (IQR: 43), with 75.6% achieving DTB < 90 min, whereas the door-to-needle (DTN) was 25 min (IQR: 34), with 57% achieving DTN < 60 min. Thirty-nine percent of patients failed lytic reperfusion and 96% of these required rescue PCI. In 52% of instances, the failure to receive reperfusion therapy was attributed to patients’ late presentation. At presentation, only 8.5% of cases were transferred by the Emergency Medical Services. Approximately one-fourth of patients with NSTEMI did not undergo a coronary angiogram. All-cause mortality was 2.4% with no significant difference between sexes or nationalities. Conclusion This nationwide AMI registry revealed younger age at presentation with a high prevalence of risk factors for coronary artery disease. While primary PCI key performance indicators have improved from the previous phase, further progress is needed in EMS utilization and acute revascularization for STEMI and NSTEMI.
Investigating factors influencing injury severity in crashes involving vulnerable road users in Pakistan
AA-Amyloidosis in the Eurasian stone-curlew (Burhinus oedicnemus)
Amyloidosis is a group of protein misfolding diseases and a well-recognized disorder in avian species. However, the knowledge of wild avian amyloid proteome is scarce. We report here gross, histopathological, ultrastructural, immunohistochemical and proteomic findings of systemic amyloidosis in seven Eurasian stone-curlews (Burhinus oedicnemus) necropsied in the Canary Islands. Spleen (5/6–83.33%), liver (3/5–60%), kidney (3/5–60%), proventricle (3/5–60%) and intestine (3/6–50%) were the more severely affected organs. All cases underwent chronic inflammatory processes associated to helminth, bacteria or fungi infection. Verminous chronic ventriculitis was the most frequent associated pathology in 5/7 (71.43%) followed by bumblefoot in 2/7 (28.57%) cases. Electron microscopy revealed a predominantly amorphous substance with 10 nm diameter non-branching amyloid fibrils. AA amyloidosis was characterized by immunohistochemistry and mass spectrometry analysis. By mass spectrometry three amyloid signature proteins were also identified: vitronectin, apolipoprotein A-IV and apolipoprotein A-I in 6/7 (85.71%), 4/7 (57.14%), and 3/7 (42.86%) cases, respectively, contributing with new knowledge about the amyloid proteome of amyloidosis in wild avian species.
Development and validation of a methylation-specific droplet digital PCR multiplex for lung cancer detection
An intelligent diagnosis method for cardiovascular diseases based on the CNN-CBAM-GRU model
Early diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) is essential for improving patient outcomes. As a primary diagnostic modality, electrocardiogram (ECG) signals pose challenges for automatic classification due to their complex temporal and morphological characteristics. This study proposes a CNN-CBAM-GRU model that integrates Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN), the Convolutional Block Attention Module (CBAM), and Gated Recurrent Units (GRU) to enhance both spatial feature representation and temporal sequence modeling. The model is evaluated on two public ECG datasets—MIT-BIH and PTB-XL—under five-class classification settings. Unlike many existing approaches that report only a limited set of metrics, this study conducts a comprehensive evaluation across multiple performance indicators, including accuracy, precision, recall, sensitivity, and F1-score, providing a more complete view of classification effectiveness. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed model achieves a strong balance between predictive performance and computational efficiency. Specifically, it achieves 98.17% accuracy and 98.91% F1-score on MIT-BIH, and 99.21% accuracy and 99.47% F1-score on PTB-XL, with a compact parameter size of 2.45 million. These findings validate the proposed model as a practical and robust solution for intelligent ECG classification and automated cardiovascular disease diagnosis.
In situ decoration of Pd NPs over methotrexate encapsulated CoFe2O4 as a recyclable catalyst for the reduction of nitroarenes and synthesis of diaryl sulfide derivatives
Assessing the potential of seaweed extracts to improve vegetative, physiological and berry quality parameters in Vitis vinifera cv. Chardonnay under cool climatic conditions
Seaweed extracts are promising plant biostimulants for viticulture, but their effects on white winegrape cultivars grown under cool climates remain fairly undocumented. Furthermore, information is limited on the biostimulant potential of some brown seaweed species like Ecklonia maxima. This study evaluated the impact of two commercial extracts (derived from Ascophyllum nodosum and Ecklonia maxima) on Vitis vinifera cv. Chardonnay in Belgium during the 2021 and 2022 growing seasons. The extracts, alongside a water‑control and an NPK‑reference (NPK‑Ref) treatment (with nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium levels comparable to the extracts), were applied as foliar sprays five times at regular intervals, from flowering to ripening. In 2021 and 2022, A. nodosum significantly increased individual leaf area (+12% and +15%), while in 2021 A. nodosum‑treated vines had an increased chlorophyll content index (+12% CCI) and photosystem II (PSII) reaction centre density (+6%) relative to control vines. This corresponded with a small, but significant, improvement (+1.5%) in PSII maximum quantum yield (Fv∕Fm), whereas PSII electron transport efficiency (ΦE0) remained unchanged. Furthermore, increased berry size, mass, and sugar content were observed in A. nodosum‑treated vines during ripening in 2022, comparable to NPK‑Ref vines. Conversely, the E. maxima extract had limited effects on vegetative growth, physiology, and subsequent berry development. Yield increase from 2021 to 2022 varied by treatment, with a significant increase observed for E. maxima (+60%) and NPK‑Ref vines (+80%), relative to control vines. Our results indicate that seaweed extracts, specifically A. nodosum‑based, can enhance grapevine leaf area, CCI, and Fv∕Fm under cool climatic conditions. A. nodosum treatment was also associated with increased berry size and sugar content, while E. maxima treatment was associated with increased yield in the subsequent, warmer season. Altogether, our study highlights that the differential effects of seaweed extracts on grapevine development are modulated by species and environmental conditions.