Adolescence is a crucial period for identity formation and sexual exploration, and many adolescents turn to online media platforms to enhance this aspect of their lives. Given the interactive nature ...of these platforms, there is a possibility for adolescents to share sexual content. This study investigates the lived experiences of teenage girls regarding the consequences of sharing sexual content on social networks. Employing a qualitative method of descriptive phenomenology, this research focuses on understanding the multifaceted outcomes associated with the dissemination of sexual content in the sexually conservative culture of Iran. The participants comprised adolescent girls aged 16–19 residing in Tehran during the winter of 2023. A targeted sampling technique was employed, with data collection continuing until saturation was achieved. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, and data analysis was performed using the seven-step Claysey method. Through 12 interviews emerged 59 sub-codes, 14 main codes, and 4 core codes, encompassing the themes of need satisfaction, consequences within online relationships, interpersonal consequences, and social consequences. The findings of this study underscore the diverse consequences of sharing sexual content, influenced by cultural factors. These results aim to enhance parental awareness and support relevant professionals in safeguarding children and adolescents against potential stigma, trauma, and abuse.
Purpose
To explore the effectiveness and advantage of three-dimensional (3D)-printed navigation templates (3DPN-template) assisted in cervical spine fusion (CSF) surgery as compared to conventional ...surgery.
Methods
An electronic literature search in PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Cochrane was conducted for studies of 3DPN-templates in CSF up to May 2020. Outcome measures as the accuracy rate, operation time, intra-operative blood loss, and fluoroscopy used, associated with CSF were extracted. Mean difference based on changes was quantified using Hedges’ g.
Results
From 4414 potentially relevant studies, 61 full-text publications were screened. Thirteen studies comprising 330 cases with 1323 screw placements were eligible for inclusion. For template group, pooled estimates were as follows: 97.3% accuracy rate for screw placement, 144.7 min for operating time, 273.6 ml for blood loss, and 3.2 min for fluoroscopic times. A significantly positive difference was observed between the template group compared to control group in terms of accuracy rate of screw placement (Z = 5.3), operation time (Z = 2.41), intra-operative blood loss (Z = 2.64), and fluoroscopic times (Z = 3.64) (all,
P
value < 0.0001). Risk of bias for studies under review was assessed using the Newcastle–Ottawa Scale (NOS), and 11 studies were found as having high quality. Overall, funnel plot and Begg’s test did not indicate obvious publication bias.
Conclusion
The 3D-printed navigation template in the cervical surgery can improve accuracy of pedicle screw placement and consequently improve outcomes. In future, multi-center efforts are needed to validate the relationships found in this review.
The aim of this paper is to examine the empirical relationship between the knowledge-based economy and economic growth in MENA countries. We are interested in identifying pillars linked with the ...transition to a knowledge-based economy that is related to growth performance. We used a growth model in Barro and Sala-i-Martin framework (1995) for the period of 2010–2015. It includes a panel data set that consisted the annual economic growth rate for selected MENA countries and, within the theoretical and empirical framework, applied the four indicators used for identifying the situation of the knowledge-based economy. The empirical results obtained using the generalized method of moments dynamic panel indicates institutions, human capital and research, infrastructure, and business sophistication to be the pillars of knowledge-based economy that influence a significant and positive economic growth in MENA countries. We suggest that governments in this region should consider the knowledge-related policies for accelerating transiting to the knowledge-based economy and improving economic performance.
Skin cancers are common and heterogenous malignancies affecting up to two in three Australians before age 70. Despite recent developments in diagnosis and therapeutic strategies, the mortality rate ...and costs associated with managing patients with skin cancers remain high. The lack of well-defined clinical and histopathological features makes their diagnosis and classification difficult in some cases and the prognostication difficult in most skin cancers. Recent advancements in large-scale “omics” studies, including genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics and imaging-omics, have provided invaluable information about the molecular and visual landscape of skin cancers. On many occasions, it has refined tumor classification and has improved prognostication and therapeutic stratification, leading to improved patient outcomes. Therefore, this paper reviews the recent advancements in omics approaches and appraises their limitations and potential for better classification and stratification of skin cancers.
An odd number of real Floquet multipliers greater than unity prevents the classical time delayed feedback control from stabilizing torsion-free orbits of nonautonomous systems. This paper ...investigates this limitation in the context of the method of harmonic oscillators. This method aims to stabilize periodic orbits of dynamical systems through a proper coupling to a system of harmonic oscillators. The results show that the method of harmonics oscillators does not suffer from this limitation for a proper coupling condition. A practical approach of designing the coupling condition that allows stabilizing torsion-free orbits of nonautonomous systems is presented. The success of the proposed approach is demonstrated using numerical examples.
•Clinico-histopathological assessments are not always sufficient to identify primary cSCC lesions with metastatic potential.•Important protein markers are increased in metastatic cSCC relative to the ...primary lesions.•Proteomics data can separate primary and metastatic cSCC lesions based on their histopathological diagnosis.•Cell migration and cell survival are increased, and apoptosis is inhibited in metastatic cSCC lesions.
Cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC) is a common malignancy worldwide and the first as the cause of death from keratinocytic carcinomas. Around 5% of primary cSCCs metastasize, leading to a 5-year survival rate of only 11 %.
This paper aims to investigate the proteome profile of primary and metastatic cSCC lesions for the identification of potential diagnostic biomarkers and molecular alterations.
Liquid chromatography coupled with SWATH-MS workflow was used to analyse the proteome profile of formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded samples of primary (n = 20) and metastatic cSCC (n = 25) lesions. Statistical and bioinformatics analysis was performed to identify differentially abundant proteins and molecular alterations between the lesions.
A total of 5037 proteins were identified across the samples of which 19 proteins including ISG15, APOA1 and MARCKS with roles in metastasis were increased and 11 proteins including DMKN, APCS and CST6 decreased in metastatic cSCC lesions relative to the primary phenotypes (adj. p-value <0.05). The proteomic data separated the lesions based on their histopathological diagnosis. Bioinformatics analysis revealed that cell migration, cell survival and immune response are likely activated, and apoptosis is inhibited in metastatic cSCC lesions, indicating increased lesion complexity as the disease progresses from primary to the metastatic phenotype. Two samples were reclassified after PCA analysis.
SWATH-MS analysis identified important molecular changes between primary and metastatic cSCC samples. Exploring these findings further will allow their translation into the clinic for improved tumour diagnosis, staging and therapeutic intervention.
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Pancreatic cancer is one of the most fatal malignant tumors, with a poor prognosis. Nowadays, computational methods for designing and predicting anticancer agents have gained ...increased attention. In this work, a QSAR study is conducted to further investigate the activity of 5797 agents against pancreatic cancer cell lines. QSAR models are a system of classification approaches that are used to construct and validate the predictive potential of created models. This approach demonstrates the prediction in the active (1) and inactive (−1) format. Here, the classification QSAR technique is employed to construct and evaluate models. The classification QSAR model has been constructed by the Monte Carlo method based on the representation of the molecular structure by SMILES (simplified molecular input line entry systems) using the CORAL software. Four random splits of data by making four sets such as active training, passive training, calibration, and validation sets are assessed. The numerical values of sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy for the validation set of splits 1 to 4 are in the range of 0.7726–0.7901, 0.9007–0.9220, and 0.8548–0.8730 respectively. The Matthews correlation coefficient (MCC) of these models for external validation sets is found to be in the range of 0.6832 to 0.7215.
Improving outcomes for diffuse glioma patients requires methods that can accurately and sensitively monitor tumour activity and treatment response. Extracellular vesicles (EV) are membranous ...nanoparticles that can traverse the blood-brain-barrier, carrying oncogenic molecules into the circulation. Measuring clinically relevant glioma biomarkers cargoed in circulating EVs could revolutionise how glioma patients are managed. Despite their suitability for biomarker discovery, the co-isolation of highly abundant complex blood proteins has hindered comprehensive proteomic studies of circulating-EVs. Plasma-EVs isolated from pre-operative glioma grade II-IV patients (
= 41) and controls (
= 11) were sequenced by Sequential window acquisition of all theoretical fragment ion spectra mass spectrometry (SWATH-MS) and data extraction was performed by aligning against a custom 8662-protein library. Overall, 4054 proteins were measured in plasma-EVs. Differentially expressed proteins and putative circulating-EV markers were identified (adj.
-value < 0.05), including those reported in previous in-vitro and ex-vivo glioma-EV studies. Principal component analysis showed that plasma-EV protein profiles clustered according to glioma histological-subtype and grade, and plasma-EVs resampled from patients with recurrent tumour progression grouped with more aggressive glioma samples. The extensive plasma-EV proteome profiles achieved here highlight the potential for SWATH-MS to define circulating-EV biomarkers for objective blood-based measurements of glioma activity that could serve as ideal surrogate endpoints to assess tumour progression and allow more dynamic, patient-centred treatment protocols.
The design and characterization of a new photonic chip on TriPleX<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">^{TM} </tex-math></inline-formula> integrated platform technology for investigating ...all-optical Haar transform (HT) based compression in the visible spectrum is proposed. A building block (BB) based on a multimode interference (MMI) structure is designed for green light wavelength (532 nm), enabling the optical HT operation in the circuits of the optical chip. The designed TriPleX chip demonstrates two types of MMI based optical circuits, i.e., restricted interference (RI) and general interference (GI), allowing the implementation of the optical HT and compression on the input image pixels. An optical image compression rate of 75% is achieved for a linear 8-pixels array of an image by the designed circuit in the chip. An experimental coupling ratio (CR) of ~98:2 is obtained by the designed circuit in the chip with identical optical inputs, proving high capability of the proposed design for the realization of optical HT and image compression.
A new structure of switched capacitor multilevel inverter (SCMLI) capable of voltage boosting and with self-balancing ability is introduced in this article. This advantage is the result of a step by ...step rise of capacitor voltages in each module, supplied by just one DC voltage source. The proposed topology generates a sinusoidal output waveform with a magnitude several times greater than the input one. Higher output staircase AC voltage is obtained by applying a nearest level control (NLC) modulation technique. The most significant features of this configuration can be mentioned as: fewer semiconductor devices, remarkably low total harmonic distortion (THD), desirable operating under high /low frequency, high efficiency, inherent bipolar voltage production, easy circuit expansion, ease of control and size reduction of the circuit thanks to utilizing neither bulky transformer nor inductor. Moreover, the proposed SCMLI is comprehensively surveyed through theoretical investigation and a comparison of its effectiveness to recent topologies. Eventually, the operating principle of a 25-level prototype of the suggested SCMLI is validated by simulation in the MATLAB SIMULINK environment and experimental results.
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