Research works

The Chart Before the Laboratory: Diagnostic Stewardship in Pediatric Breakthrough Seizures

Children with established epilepsy with breakthrough seizures are frequently seen in emergency departments (EDs) and in inpatient services. There is often a reflex from the frontline providers toward a broad workup, but the evidence suggests it is frequently excessive.In one coho...

Use of artificial intelligence for medication adherence assessment in patients with type 2 diabetes: an exploratory study in Morocco using ChatGPT and the validated general medication adherence scale

Objectives: Medication adherence remains a major challenge in the management of type 2 diabetes (T2D), especially in middle-income countries such as Morocco. With the rapid development of artificial intelligence, large language models, including ChatGPT, may offer new opportuniti...

Transthoracic echocardiography as a predictor of spinal anesthesia-induced hypotension in cesarean section: a prospective observational study

Spinal anesthesia-induced hypotension (SAIH) is a common complication during cesarean delivery and is closely associated with maternal intravascular volume status. However, reliable real-time assessment of volume changes remains challenging. This study aimed to evaluate whether t...

The Safety and Feasibility of Laryngeal Mask Airway Management in Nonintubated Subxiphoid–Subcostal Thoracoscopic Thymectomy: Preliminary Results

Introduction While intubated general anesthesia with single-lung ventilation is regarded as mandatory for conventional thoracoscopic surgery, and various minimally invasive approaches to thymectomy have been described, nonintubated thoracoscopic thymectomy remains technically cha...

Epigenetic repression of IL-1β by C1QBP restricts Dectin-1-mediated host defense against murine invasive candidiasis

Invasive candidiasis, predominantly caused by Candida albicans, threatens immunocompromised individuals with high mortality. Dendritic cell-derived interleukin-1β, orchestrated via Dectin-1-mediated β-glucan recognition, is central to antifungal defense. While the Dectin-1/Syk/CA...

Comparison of long-acting versus short-acting growth hormone therapy in children with idiopathic short stature: a retrospective cohort study with advanced causal inference methods

To compare the efficacy and safety of polyethylene glycol-modified recombinant human growth hormone (PEG-rhGH) versus daily rhGH in children with idiopathic short stature (ISS) during 12–24 months of follow-up and to propose individualised treatment strategies incorporating mid-p...

Adaptive third-order super-twisting sliding mode control based on field-oriented control for three-phase induction motors satisfying power quality constraints

Robust control of the induction motor across a wide range of torque-speed operating points remains a challenge, particularly when the variable frequency drive (VFD) must satisfy stringent power quality constraints for motor insulation longevity. Therefore, this paper proposes an...

Development and usability evaluation of a software prototype for quality management in Human Milk Banks: a methodological study

Human Milk Banks (HMB) are specialized services that promote, protect, and support breastfeeding, as well as process, control, and distribute donated human milk, especially for premature or hospitalized infants. Brazil has the largest and most consolidated HMB network worldwide,...

AI literacy and AI anxiety in emergency and first aid students: a cross-sectional study

This study was conducted to determine Artificial Intelligence (AI) literacy and AI anxiety levels in students attending the First Aid and Emergency Program, to analyze the relationship between these variables, and to identify significant predictors of AI literacy and AI anxiety....

The impact of cognitive behavioral therapy and third-wave therapies on the quality of life of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder: a systematic review and meta-analysis

The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and third-wave therapies on the quality of life of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). A systematic search was conducted in PubMed, Embase, Web of Science and the Cochrane Librar...

Ethnobotanical study of wild and semi-wild edible plants and their contributions to food security in Zigem District, Ethiopia

Wild edible plants (WEPs) are key components of indigenous food systems, contributing to food security, dietary diversity, livelihood resilience, and the maintenance of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) in rural communities. However, empirical data on WEP diversity, utilizat...

Bacterial etiology, antimicrobial susceptibility, and clinical outcomes in cervicofacial space infections before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic: a 10-year single-centre study

To investigate epidemiological trends of cervicofacial space infections in Western China, including pathogen distribution, antimicrobial resistance, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on pathogen susceptibility and patient outcomes. Clinical data from 542 hospitalized patien...

Legislative architecture of online hate speech offences in Arab cybercrime laws: legality and proportionality

This article examines the legislative architecture of online hate-speech offences in four Arab jurisdictions: Jordan, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Algeria. It asks whether cybercrime, media, and anti-discrimination frameworks criminalise online hate in a manner consisten...

Log-transformed Red-Tailed Hawk optimization for single-diode photovoltaic parameter extraction

Accurate extraction of the five parameters of the single-diode photovoltaic equivalent-circuit model is hampered by the nine-orders-of-magnitude dynamic range of the diode saturation current I 0 , which can cause gradient-free optimisers to converge to degenerate solutions when I...

Embedding e-learning in postgraduate medical education: system-level barriers and enablers in Hong Kong

INTRODUCTION: E-learning is increasingly central to postgraduate medical education (PGME), yet system-level barriers may hinder its integration. In Hong Kong, the Academy of Medicine (HKAM) has invested in a learning management system and faculty development, but uptake among Aca...

Closed System Self-Update Paradox

This paper proves a fundamental theorem concerning the impossibility of self-memory in finite closed systems. Suppose the total information storage capacity of a system consists of a finite number of information atoms (indivisible minimal semantic units). We prove that any non-tr...

Levodopa-responsive parkinsonism with dystonia in RAB39B-related Waisman syndrome: a case report

Pathogenic variants in RAB39B, located on chromosome Xq28, cause a rare X-linked neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by intellectual disability and early-onset parkinsonism, commonly referred to as Waisman syndrome. RAB39B encodes a neuron-specific small GTPase involved in...

Impact of sex disparities on laparoscopic adrenalectomy outcomes: a coarsened exact matching study

It is unclear how sex disparities affect surgical outcomes following retroperitoneal laparoscopic adrenalectomy (RLA). Therefore, we studied whether gender could affect RLA outcomes perioperatively. A retrospective study was performed involving consecutive cases underwent unilate...

From routine to identity: the Habit-Trait Crystallization Model of personality change in the workplace

Personality research recognises both the relative stability of adult traits and their capacity for change, and habit research explains how repeated behaviour becomes automatic. What remains underspecified is the mechanism through which repeated, socially reinforced workplace beha...

Synergistic adsorption–photocatalysis in TiO₂/activated carbon composites: optimization of p-nitrophenol degradation and application to real textile wastewater treatment

The photocatalytic degradation of persistent nitro-aromatic pollutants is often limited by poor light utilization and fast electron-hole recombination in conventional TiO 2 systems. In this work, TiO 2 /carbon composites were prepared using activated carbon (AC) and biomass-deriv...