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Scoping review of evidence synthesis: Concepts, types and methods
Objectives To systematically explore the concepts, types, and methodologies related to literature reviews and evidence synthesis. Methods We conducted a scoping review using PubMed, Embase, Biblioteca Virtual da Saúde, grey literature, and websites of key international and national institutions, including the Cochrane Collaboration, Joanna Briggs Institute, Center for Reviews and Dissemination, Campbell Collaboration, and REBRATS, with searches completed through November 13, 2024. Studies were included if they identified or proposed theories and/or methodologies for evidence synthesis at international or national levels, with eligibility limited to studies published in English, Spanish, or Portuguese and no restrictions on publication year. Title and abstract screening was conducted independently by ten reviewers working in pairs, with a third reviewer resolving conflicts as needed, and full-text copies of potentially relevant articles were retrieved for further analysis. Results The review included 99 studies employing a variety of evidence synthesis methods. A total of 71 terminologies for types of evidence synthesis were identified and grouped by conceptual and methodological similarities, resulting in 16 categories of evidence synthesis, each with clear differences in concepts and methods. Conclusions The lack of standardization in defining and classifying review types challenges the scientific community by hindering study comparisons and appropriate methodology selection. Future research should explore the relationships between different review types and their outcomes, as well as the applicability of new methodologies across various fields.
Metabolomics and machine learning identify urine metabolic characteristics and potential biomarkers for severe Mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia
Bacterial profile and antimicrobial susceptibility pattern of community and hospital-acquired urinary tract infections among UTI suspected geriatrics in Gondar town, Northwest Ethiopia
Background Bacterial urinary tract infection (UTI) is the second most frequent infection next to respiratory tract infection within the geriatric population both in the community and hospital settings. There is a limited data regarding geriatrics UTI in this study area. Therefore, the current study aimed to assess the status of the community and hospital-acquired urinary tract infections, and antimicrobial susceptibility patterns among UTI suspected geriatrics which is essential to physicians and health care workers to implement appropriate intervention. Methods A comparative cross-sectional study was conducted among 460 UTI suspected geriatrics admitted at the University of Gondar Comprehensive Specialized Hospital and attended in Gondar town (Kallen Bnakafl and Menna Geriatrics Support Center Clinics) from 1st May 2022–14th July 2022. Socio-demographic data were collected using structured questionnaires. Urine culture was performed and isolates were counted for significant growth by a colony counter, and their antibiotic susceptibility was done by the Kirby–Bauer disc diffusion method. Data were entered using Epi Data version 4.0.0 and analyzed by Stata/IC version 14.0. P-value < 0.05 at 95% CI was considered statistically significant. Result The overall prevalence of UTI in geriatrics was 44.4%. The prevalence of UTI among community and hospitalized suspected patients was 38.7% and 50%, respectively. Escherichia coli (E. coli) (38.6%) predominated across the two groups, followed by Klebsiella spp. (15.8%), S. saprophyticus (12.2%), P. mirabilis (9.1%), S. aureus (5.9%), and Citrobacter spp. (2.8%). Pseudomonas spp. (7.1%), K. rhinoscleromatis (5.1%), and P. vulgaris (2.8%), were isolated from only hospitalized patients. Piperacillin-tazobactam susceptibly was 100% in both study groups. Nalidixic acid resistance was 50% to 87.5% and 50% to 100% in the isolates from community and hospitalized UTI suspects, respectively. Conclusion This study found a high prevalence of bacterial UTI in geriatrics and a high rate of bacterial resistance was observed to most antimicrobial drugs tested. Piperacillin-tazobactam and meropenem were the most active antimicrobials for UTI. Therefore, expanding routine bacterial culture and antimicrobial susceptibility testing and strengthening regular surveillance systems are essential for appropriate patient care.
Simulating metabolic pathways to enhance interpretations of metabolome genome-wide association studies
Expected length of stay in residential aged care facilities in Australia: Assessing the impact of dementia using machine learning
Residual self-attention vision transformer for detecting acquired vitelliform lesions and age-related macular drusen
Effectiveness of care coordination interventions delivered to stroke survivors in low and middle-income countries: Systematic review and meta-analysis protocol
Background Stroke survivors have complex and long-term care needs requiring navigation of multiple care services and providers. Care coordination interventions provide wholistic care that meets the needs of the patient and improves their clinical outcomes and expectations. This systematic review will identify the key components of stroke care coordination interventions implemented in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) and assess their effectiveness on stroke outcomes such as motor recovery, cognitive function, mental health, stroke type and the role of stroke severity, type, and the nature of the interventions in influencing these outcomes. Methods Electronic databases, trial registries and non-database sources will be searched for published and unpublished studies. PubMed, LILACS, CINAHL via EBSCOhost, Scopus, Web of Science Core Collection, Cochrane CENTRAL and Google Scholar will be searched from 2000 to 31st May 2025, without language restriction. Trial registries including the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) and Clinicaltrials.gov will also be searched. Grey literature including dissertations, preprint repositories and conference proceedings will be searched. The key search terms include “stroke”, “care integration”, “continuity of care”, “information exchange”, “patient-centred care”, “multidisciplinary care”, “case management” and “low and middle-income countries”, together with their alternative terms and synonyms, singular and plural forms and American and British spelling. Hand search of references of relevant studies will be carried out and experts in the field of stroke care coordination interventions will be contacted for their knowledge about any study missed by our searches. The studies will be collated in Rayyan and duplicates removed. Study selection will be done using a study selection flow chart developed from the pre-specified eligibility criteria defined by the PICOS elements (P ─ patient, I ─ intervention, C ─ comparator, O ─ outcomes and S ─study). Quality in the included studies will be assessed for risk of bias using the Cochrane Risk of Bias tool (version 2) for Randomized Controlled Trials (RoB 2) and ROBINS-I for Non-randomized Studies of Intervention. Data will be extracted using a pre-tested data extraction form developed from Microsoft Excel. Study selection, data extraction and risk of bias assessment will be conducted independently by two reviewers (SKJO and ADA). Disagreements between the reviewers will be resolved through discussion. Risk ratio (RR) will be used as the effect measure for binary/dichotomous outcomes. For continuous outcomes mean difference (MD) with standard deviation (SD) or standardized mean difference (SMD) for outcomes measured on different instruments or scales will be used as effect measures for expressing effectiveness of care coordination interventions. Random-effects meta-analyses will be employed to pool studies, and all effects estimates will be reported with their 95% confidence interval (CI). Heterogeneity will be assessed using the I2 statistic. The overall certainty of evidence will be assessed using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE). Expected outcomes This review will attempt to identify the components of stroke-coordinated care interventions in low- and middle-income countries. It will assess whether these interventions improve clinical outcomes such as motor and cognitive functioning, mental wellbeing, mortality, and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) of stroke survivors. The review will also explore how factors —such as stroke type, severity, and the nature of care coordination interventions (including the specific components) influence clinical, functional and psychosocial outcomes. The findings will help in determining the most effective care coordination interventions that should be adopted as care models to improve patient outcomes, whilst identifying evidence gaps for future research. Protocol registration and dissemination This systematic review and meta-analysis protocol has been registered in PROSPERO [CRD42024587311]. The findings of the study will be shared with the relevant stakeholders and disseminated through scientific conferences and peer review publications.
The working mechanism of biomarkers related to sumoylation modification in coronary artery disease
Correction: Recency and rarity effects in disambiguating the focus of utterance: A developmental study
Development of a cornea-equivalent phantom in the terahertz frequency region for 3D temperature rise assessment
Abstract As the next generation of mobile communication systems (Beyond 5G/6G) is expected to extend into the terahertz (THz) frequency region, it is essential to ensure human safety from electromagnetic waves. For this purpose, the evaluation of the temperature rise caused by the electromagnetic wave energy absorbed by the human body is required. However, there have been no reports on the development of phantoms with dielectric properties equivalent to biological tissues that can be used to measure temperature rise in the THz frequency region by experimental methods. Therefore, in this study, a glycerin-based semisolid phantom was developed to match the dielectric properties of the cornea between 0.1 and 0.6 THz; the cornea is one of the most important tissues for exposure assessment in the THz frequency region. In addition, fluorescent thermoprobes were included in the phantom to measure the temperature rise induced by the absorption of THz waves. The results show that temperature measurements using confocal laser microscopy can be used to obtain temperature distributions in the phantom with a high spatial resolution [2 µm in the transverse direction (xy) and 20 µm in the axial direction (z)] and a high-temperature resolution (0.04 °C).
Autonomous adaptive optimization of NMR experimental conditions for precise inference of minor conformational states of proteins based on chemical exchange saturation transfer
In scientific experiments where measurement sensitivity is a major limiting factor, the optimization of experimental conditions, such as measurement parameters, is essential to maximize the information obtained per unit time and the number of experiments performed. When optimization in advance is not possible because of limited prior knowledge of the system, autonomous, adaptive optimization must be implemented during the experiment. One approach to this involves sequential Bayesian optimal experimental design, which adopts mutual information as the utility function to be maximized. In this study, we applied this optimization method to the chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) experiment in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, which is used to study minor but functionally important invisible states of certain molecules, such as proteins. Adaptive optimization was utilized because prior knowledge of minor states is limited. To this end, we developed an adaptive optimization system of 15 N-CEST experimental conditions for proteins using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) to calculate the posterior distribution and utility function. To ensure the completion of MCMC computations within a reasonable period with sufficient precision, we developed a second-order approximation of the CEST forward model. Both simulations and actual measurements using the FF domain of the HYPA/FBP11 protein with the A39G mutation demonstrated that the adaptive method outperformed the conventional one in terms of estimation precision of minor-state parameters based on equal numbers of measurements. Because the algorithm used for the evaluation of the utility function is independent of the type of experiment, the proposed method can be applied to various spectroscopic measurements in addition to NMR, if the forward model or its approximation can be calculated sufficiently quickly.
Habitat-based radiomics from contrast-enhanced CT and clinical data to predict lymph node metastasis in clinical N0 peripheral lung adenocarcinoma ≤ 3 cm
Inhibition of VE-PTP rejuvenates Schlemm’s canal in aged mice and acts via Tie2
Purpose Glaucoma is the leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide and is associated with high intraocular pressure (IOP). Schlemm’s canal (SC), a hybrid vessel present in the anterior part of the eye, is known to control IOP by draining aqueous humor into the systemic circulation. Formation and function of SC is supported by the tyrosine kinase receptor Tie2. Likewise, inhibition of the vascular endothelial protein tyrosine phosphatase (VE-PTP), which associates with Tie2 has similar effects. However, VE-PTP also targets VE-cadherin and several other substrates. Here, we analyzed whether Tie2 is indeed the major substrate which is responsible for the role of VE-PTP in SC function. In addition, we analyzed the function of VE-PTP in SC of the aged eye in mice. Methodology We tested the effects of the VE-PTP inhibitor AKB9778 and of VE-PTP gene inactivation on SC area and IOP in WT and in Tie2iLEC/SC-KO and VE-cadherin-Y685F mutant mice. Results Pharmacologic inhibition of VE-PTP with AKB9778 increased SC area only in mice expressing Tie2. The VE-cadherin-Y685F mutation had neither an effect on SC area nor on the effects of AKB9778 on SC formation. Induced VE-PTP gene inactivation in adult mice had similar effects as AKB9778. Furthermore, we could show that AKB9778 improved SC function in aged mice as judged by increasing SC area and lowering of IOP. Conclusion Interference with VE-PTP function improves SC function in a strictly Tie2 dependent way and pharmacologic inhibition of VE-PTP with AKB9778 is a promising approach for improving SC function in the aged eye.
Novel hybrid data-driven modeling based on feature space reconstruction and multihead self-attention gated recurrent unit: applied to PM2.5 concentrations prediction
Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio as a potential biomarker in predicting in-stent restenosis: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Background In-stent restenosis (ISR) remains a significant challenge despite advancements in percutaneous interventions, often leading to adverse clinical outcomes. The neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) has emerged as a potential biomarker for predicting ISR, offering opportunities for improved risk stratification and treatment personalization. This systematic review and meta-analysis assess the predictive value of NLR in ISR, providing insights into its clinical applicability. Methods Systematic literature search was conducted in scientific databases until 21st July 2024. Observational studies evaluating NLR in stented patients were included. Random effect meta-analysis and linear regression model were used to investigate odds ratios (OR) as predictor and linear dose-response relationship of ISR. Sensitivity and specificity of NLR to predict this outcome were pooled and a summary receiver operating characteristics (sROC) curve was generated. This study was already registered in the PROSPERO (ID: CRD42024555123). Results 15 studies with 3 889 patients were included. High NLR was associated with increased risk of ISR in coronary and non-coronary stenting [aOR = 1.61 (95%CI 1.14–2.25); aOR = 1.69 (95%CI 1.52–1.87)]. One unit increase of NLR is equal to 30% and 44% increased risk of ISR in coronary and non-coronary patients. Included studies showing NLR as a robust predictor of ISR with sensitivity and specificity of 70.5% (95%CI 60.1%-79.2%) and 74.1% (95%CI 56.7%-86.2%) for coronary stenting and 77.7% (95%CI 69.8%-84.0%) and 66.4% (95%CI 49.6%-79.8%) non-coronary stenting, with AUC of 0.77 (0.70–0.82) in the coronary and 0.79 (0.70–0.85) in the non-coronary sub-groups. Conclusion In conclusion, NLR yields promising predictive and prognostic potentials in predicting ISR in coronary and non-coronary stents. Additionally, NLR appears to be more proficient in predicting early ISR compared to late ISR in both coronary and non-coronary stents.
Predicting hospital outpatient volume using XGBoost: a machine learning approach
Image rain removal network based on checkerboard transformer and CNN hybrid mechanism
In this paper, a novel hybrid network called ChessFormer is proposed for the single image de-rain task. The network seamlessly integrates the advantages of Transformer and fitted neural network (CNN) in a checkerboard architecture, fully utilizing the global modeling capability of Transformer and the local feature extraction efficiency of CNN.ChessFormer adopts a multilevel feature extraction and progressive feature fusion strategy to efficiently achieve the rain line while preserving the We design a multidimensional transposed attention (MSTA), which enhances the network fusion for different rain patterns and mechanism image textures by combining self-attention with gated phase operation. In addition, the efficient architecture ensures full integration of features across dimensions and codecs. Experimental results show that ChessFormer outperforms existing methods in terms of quantitative metrics and visual quality on multiple benchmark datasets, achieving state-of-the-art performance with fewer parameters.
The effect of the arousal threshold on sleep bruxism intensity in coexisting sleep apnea and sleep bruxism: a polysomnographic study
Diagnosis, clinical features, and mortality risk factors in a Chinese cohort with pulmonary mucormycosis
Background Pulmonary mucormycosis is a rare and often fatal fungal infection. Identifying high-risk factors for pulmonary mucormycosis holds the potential to improve patient outcomes. This study aimed to identify the clinical characteristics and risk factors associated with pulmonary mucormycosis outcomes in a Chinese cohort. Materials and methods A retrospective analysis was conducted on 37 patients diagnosed with pulmonary mucormycosis, focusing on clinical records, laboratory findings, and computed tomography (CT) imaging. Diagnosis was primarily based on histopathology or next-generation sequencing. Results The median age of the patients was 55 years, and the most common underlying conditions were hematological malignancies, diabetes, and organ transplantation. Imaging frequently revealed bilateral lung involvement with ground-glass opacities and nodular lesions. The overall mortality rate was 29.7%, with significant risk factors for 90-day mortality including hypertension (Hazard Ratio [HR] = 3.36, 95% Confidence Interval [CI] = 1.01–11.12, P = 0.048), organ transplantation (HR = 4.93, 95% CI = 1.48–16.4, P = 0.009), and immunosuppression (HR = 8.83, 95% CI = 1.13–69.14, P = 0.038). Conclusions Early suspicion and timely diagnostic measures, such as biopsy or metagenomic sequencing, are crucial for improving patient outcomes. These findings underscore the importance of recognizing and managing pulmonary mucormycosis in high-risk populations.