Search Results (2,009)

Gut microbiome research turns sequencing reads into taxa and functions by matching them against a reference database of isolate and metagenome-assembled genomes. That database is the measuring instrument, yet its sensitivity is never reported. Reference incompleteness is therefore not a computational nuisance but a measurement bias; because the gaps are geographically structured, it behaves as differential misclassification rather than random error. The magnitudes are substantial. On identical data, the share of reads receiving a taxonomic assignment runs from 44% to 94.5% depending only on whether a standard Kraken2 database, UHGG, or a gut-specific catalog is used; missing genomes are enriched in non-Westernized populations. Formally, expected observed richness is true richness multiplied by population-specific coverage, so comparing two populations estimates the true ratio times the ratio of their coverages, a second term no study reports. In a simulation, a 5-percentage-point coverage gap raises the false-positive rate for a between-population richness comparison to 55%, a proof-of-concept rather than a real-world estimate. Reference bias distorts between-population comparisons in a determinate direction rather than simply blurring them and does so invisibly: batch correction leaves it untouched and quality control never sees it. We distinguish it from sampling bias, batch effects, and non-differential misclassification, and propose Minimum Information for Reference Reporting (MIRR). Full article

Medical image segmentation plays an important role in healthcare because it transforms raw scans into useful information for diagnosis and treatment planning. Despite the strong performance of deep learning, most supervised segmentation methods require large amounts of pixel-level annotations and may become less reliable when imaging modalities are incomplete or when prediction uncertainty is not properly considered. Variational autoencoders (VAEs) are deep learning models that were proposed to address some of these limitations, as they can learn probabilistic latent representations capable of capturing meaningful structure in medical images. This review provides a structured survey of how VAEs are applied to medical image segmentation and organizes them around five roles: generating synthetic samples for data augmentation, integrating variational representations into segmentation networks for representation learning and regularization, localizing pathology through reconstruction-based anomaly detection, fusing multiple modalities in a shared latent space for missing-modality segmentation, and learning anatomical shape priors for segmentation correction and quality control. In this work, the reviewed literature includes both approaches where the VAE directly contributes to the segmentation and related applications that support the segmentation pipeline, such as data generation, preprocessing or weak localization. We also summarize the main datasets and evaluation metrics used in the field and discuss current challenges, including blurry reconstructions, the use of hybrid architectures in several reviewed studies, the strong concentration of studies on brain MRI, the limited use of uncertainty, and the possible complementary roles of VAEs alongside diffusion and foundation models. Overall, the studies reviewed here suggest that VAEs can serve as parts of larger systems, where they provide structured representations and help handle missing modalities. Conditional models trained to predict masks can also generate multiple plausible segmentations, which may reflect variation among annotations when the training data capture it. Full article

An overall missingness rate does not determine how much precision survives: at 25% missing, an exact calculation raises the standard error by 1.2% under one admissible mechanism and 21.4% under another. For variable or all-or-none block missingness at random, we characterize the precision attainable across mechanisms sharing an observation rate and a lower bound on observation probabilities. The envelope is sharp: it contains every attainable efficiency bound. The favorable endpoint is explicit. In atomless spaces the adverse endpoint integrates the quantile function of the residual influence variance, so it is evaluated, not optimized; in mixed atomic and nonatomic spaces it has an exact attained variational characterization. Crossings with a precision requirement divide missingness into guaranteed, allocation-sensitive, and inadmissible regions. The construction also handles absolute variance and interval width requirements and returns the minimum-cost recovery as a priority ordering. For a partially observed continuous outcome, cross-fitted one-step estimators and a fail-closed bootstrap give asymptotic simultaneous inference on a prespecified grid under stated regularity conditions, and inversion yields an ordered confidence set for both thresholds. Without an overlap restriction, no positive observation rate guarantees nontrivial retention. Public clinical illustrations are reported, with Monte Carlo joint coverage below nominal in the smallest samples. Full article

(1) Background: Neurological and cognitive disorders increase with age, raising risks of falls, poor bone health, and hip fractures. While previous studies found increased complications of hip arthroplasty in neurologic disorders in general, no studies have specifically focused on hip hemiarthroplasty (HA) for femoral neck fractures in patients with epilepsy. This retrospective study aimed to evaluate the outcomes of HA in hip fracture patients with epilepsy. (2) Methods: After IRB approval, all HA cases performed in our multi-hospital health system were reviewed. Included were patients who underwent HA for hip fracture and had a documented diagnosis of epilepsy. Cases with missing follow-up data or secondary epilepsy due to associated neurological conditions were excluded. A total of 69 cases (68 patients) were included. (3) Results: The cohort included 43 females and 25 males, with a mean age of 73.7 years. After a mean follow-up of 58.1 months, complications included prosthetic joint infections (8.7%), periprosthetic fractures (8.7%), acetabular erosion (1.45%), and dislocation (1.45%). Mortality rates were 4.4% at 3 months, 16.18% at 12 months, and 38.24% at 3 years. Given the retrospective, non-comparative design and small sample size, these findings are descriptive and do not establish causality between epilepsy and complication risk. (4) Conclusions: Periprosthetic fractures and prosthetic joint infections were the most common complications after HA in patients with epilepsy. Larger multicenter studies are recommended. Full article

The widespread use of social media among university students has raised increasing concerns regarding its possible association with academic behaviors, including procrastination. This systematic review aimed to synthesize empirical evidence on the relationship between social media use and academic procrastination among university students. Following the PRISMA 2020 guidelines, a systematic search was conducted in Web of Science, Scopus, PsycINFO, ERIC, and PubMed and was last updated in August 2026. Quantitative peer-reviewed empirical studies examining the association between social media use and academic procrastination in university populations were included. Twenty-nine articles comprising 30 study samples met the inclusion criteria. Overall, the evidence indicated a recurrent positive association between social media use and academic procrastination, although the magnitude and form of the relationship varied across distinct operationalizations, including general use, problematic use, addiction, social media disorder, and platform- or behavior-specific forms of use. Several studies also reported indirect associations involving psychological variables such as self-control, academic self-efficacy, grit, and fear of missing out. However, the evidence was predominantly cross-sectional and characterized by substantial conceptual, measurement, and analytical heterogeneity, limiting causal interpretation and direct quantitative comparison across studies. Full article

Computational Scattered Light Imaging (ComSLI) exploits the anisotropic scattering on aligned structures to reconstruct biological fiber networks like nerve, muscle or collagen fibers. ComSLI discerns individual fiber pathways also in densely interwoven regions with multiple crossing fibers, achieves micrometer resolution across centimeter fields of view, is compatible with various sample preparations and staining, and only requires an LED light source and a camera, making it attractive for histological tissue analysis. However, while ComSLI precisely determines the 2D (in-plane) fiber orientations, determining the 3D (out-of-plane) fiber inclinations remained challenging due to missing a-priori knowledge of the inclination angles. In this study, we measured differently inclined 3D-nanoprinted fiber bundles with ComSLI, compared the resulting scattering patterns to those obtained from nerve fibers in a tilted brain section (vervet corpus callosum), and analyzed scattering patterns and angular profiles in differently inclined brain regions. We show that the highest scattering intensity occurs along the same curved line as conical diffraction at an inclined grating. With this analytical model, we were able to estimate inclination angles of non-crossing fibers up to 60° inclination with an accuracy of 3° or better. This finally allows to quantitatively determine fiber inclinations and reconstruct 3D fiber pathways with ComSLI. Full article

Household air pollution from coal and biomass combustion can increase chronic inflammation and oxidative stress, two biological pathways central to noncommunicable disease (NCD) development. In 2015, Beijing implemented a clean heating policy (CHP), replacing household coal stoves with gas or electric heating devices in rural areas. Leveraging the phased village-level rollout of the CHP as a natural experiment, we estimated its effects on blood biomarkers of inflammation and oxidative stress (IL-6, TNF-α, CRP, and MDA) using a difference-in-differences (DiD) approach. We analyzed data from 1064 adults residing in 50 rural villages across two winter seasons (2018–2019, 2019–2020). Among the 50 villages, 10 were treated by the CHP between the first and second winter. Sociodemographic data were collected during home visits, and venous blood samples were obtained at village clinics. Biomarkers were measured using ELISA (IL-6, TNF-α, CRP) and HPLC (MDA). We applied generalized linear models with a Gamma distribution and log link, clustering standard errors at the village level. Missing covariate data were addressed via multiple imputation. We found no consistent evidence that the CHP affected the average levels of IL-6, TNF-α, CRP, or MDA in treated villages. Sex-stratified analyses suggested possible heterogeneity, although findings were not consistent across biomarkers. These results indicate that the short-term effects of the CHP on systemic inflammation and oxidative stress were inconclusive overall. Full article

Background: The co-circulation of multiple arboviruses with similar clinical presentations poses a significant challenge for public health surveillance. This study aimed to develop and clinically validate a novel multiplex RT-qPCR assay for the simultaneous detection of five arboviruses in three reactions. Methods: A diagnostic accuracy study was conducted in Salvador, Brazil. Evaluation was performed using 254 prospective serum samples and 34 archived positive samples. The primers and probes for the assay were designed in silico, all targeting highly conserved regions of Dengue (DENV), Zika (ZIKV), Chikungunya (CHIKV), Oropouche (OROV), and West Nile (WNV) viruses. The protocol was optimized in three reactions with a single thermal cycle, comprising a tetraplex reaction (DENV, CHIKV, ZIKV, and hRNAseP, an endogenous control) and two singleplex reactions (OROV and WNV). Results: In prospective analysis, the assay identified 45 DENV, 3 CHIKV, and 9 OROV-positive cases. Diagnostic accuracy for DENV and CHIKV was 96% (95% CI: 93.3–98.0%), successfully detecting four DENV cases missed by the reference standard. Furthermore, incorporating OROV enabled the identification of nine cases that conventional triplex protocols would have overlooked. Conclusion: This single-cycling multiplex RT-qPCR assay enhances epidemiological surveillance by expanding detection beyond traditional triplex targets to include OROV and WNV. This operational optimization reduces turnaround times and prevents the underdiagnosis of emerging arboviruses, serving as a robust diagnostic tool for endemic regions. Full article

Food insecurity persists globally despite growing public investment—a pattern that points to the potential role of governance and accountability mechanisms in shaping how resources are managed and allocated. While supreme audit institutions (SAIs) are widely recognized for their role in fiscal oversight, their contribution to food security governance remains unexplored empirically. This paper examines whether the effective independence of SAIs is associated with national performance on Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG 2—Zero Hunger), drawing on a panel dataset covering 50 countries over the period 2017–2023. The study employs OLS panel regression with year fixed effects. Acknowledged limitations are discussed in the main text. The paper develops the Supreme Audit Institution Effective Independence Index (SAIEI), a composite measure based on Open Budget Survey data, which captures financial autonomy, operational independence, reporting independence, and institutional safeguards. SDG 2 performance is measured through a composite index combining prevalence of undernourishment, food insecurity based on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale, and child stunting. For the analyzed sample, the results indicate a positive and statistically significant association between SAI independence and SDG 2 performance, which remains consistent across specifications controlling for economic development and overall governance quality. The association between SAI independence and SDG 2 performance appears stronger in democratic contexts, suggesting that political regime may operate as a system-level moderating condition for the relationship between audit independence and food security outcomes. The main finding—the positive association between the aggregate SAIEI index and SDG 2 performance—remains consistent across three of the four model specifications tested, including under constraints imposed by data availability. Results at the level of individual SAIEI dimensions are more sensitive and should be treated as preliminary. To assess the stability of the analytical results, a series of dedicated diagnostic checks were conducted. The missing data sensitivity tests largely confirmed the associations initially identified. An additional analysis revealed that the marginal association between SAI independence and the dependent variable is conditioned by the quality of democracy. These findings are of particular relevance to policymakers, international development organizations, and SAI oversight bodies seeking evidence-based guidance on the potential role of institutional design choices in food security governance. Full article

Background/Objectives: Similar leaf chlorophyll in agrivoltaic tea fields may conceal molecular divergence. Methods: We reanalysed physiology, RNA sequencing and metabolomics from five field zones (three plant-level replicates each), prioritizing T2 versus T3. Missing plot maps and independent installation replicates limited inference to zone associations. Results: T2 and T3 had nearly identical mean total chlorophyll (0.50495 versus 0.50309 mg g⁻¹; Welch p = 0.920), whereas T2 had higher carotenoids, total sugars, alkaloids, phenols and flavonoids; all five differences had Benjamini–Hochberg false discovery rate (FDR) < 0.05 across 50 physiological tests. Relative to the open-sun control (CK), T2 and T3 had 7 and 6857 differentially expressed genes and 35 and 523 differential unique metabolite profiles, respectively. Omitting one sample from each of T2, T3 and CK yielded 27 combinations, all showing greater transcriptome and metabolome displacement in T3. After adjustment for the leading whole-omics component, exact within-zone permutation supported sample-pattern coupling for glycolysis and porphyrin metabolism (Benjamini–Hochberg FDR = 0.0288 for each). In comparison with four public tea datasets, T1 showed the strongest descriptive rank concordance; T3 showed little concordance. Conclusions: Similar chlorophyll means coexist with divergent molecular profiles. These observational results do not establish effects of photovoltaic hardware. Full article

Background and Objectives: Psoriasis is a chronic immune-mediated inflammatory disease whose burden extends beyond the skin. Community-based data from Saudi Arabia are scarce, as most local studies recruit from dermatology clinics and miss people who never reach specialist care. This study examined its frequency in a multi-regional sample of adults in Saudi Arabia, described its clinical profile, identified factors associated with it, and examined its association with quality of life. Methods: An exploratory cross-sectional study recruited 1619 adults residing in Saudi Arabia by online convenience sampling, using a self-administered online questionnaire covering sociodemographic and health characteristics, psoriasis status and clinical features, lifestyle factors, and the Arabic WHOQOL-BREF. Groups were compared using the chi-square, Fisher’s exact and Mann–Whitney U tests. Multivariable logistic regression, with Firth-penalized and parsimonious sensitivity models, examined factors associated with psoriasis, and five linear models were fitted for the overall quality of life facet and each domain. Results: Psoriasis was reported by 3.3% of participants (95% CI 2.5 to 4.3), and by 2.7% (95% CI 2.0 to 3.6) when restricted to physician-diagnosed cases. Onset occurred before age 35 in 84.6% of cases, psychological stress was the commonest trigger (69.2%), and herbal remedies had been used more often (34.6%) than oral systemic agents (25.0%), phototherapy (15.4%) or biologics (7.7%). Current smoking was associated with higher odds of reporting psoriasis (aOR 4.23, 95% CI 1.97 to 9.08, p < 0.001) and male sex with lower odds (aOR 0.41, 95% CI 0.19 to 0.90), and this was consistent across sensitivity models; middle income and university education were also associated with higher odds, although these may reflect differences in who receives a diagnosis rather than differences in risk. Psoriasis was independently associated with a lower overall quality of life and general health score (β = −6.73, 95% CI −12.75 to −0.71, p = 0.028); all four domain coefficients were negative but non-significant. Conclusions: Psoriasis was reported by roughly one in thirty participants and was associated with poorer self-rated quality of life. Smoking was the most consistent modifiable correlate, and treatment patterns suggest reliance on remedies outside established care. Full article

Background/Objectives: Oncology palliative care involves sustained engagement with suffering, loss, complex communication, and end-of-life decisions. This exploratory study compared burnout and quality of life among professionals working in oncology palliative care, intensive care, and emergency care, and secondarily with a heterogeneous reference group. Methods: A cross-sectional convenience sample included 68 healthcare professionals from two hospital units within the same Portuguese public hospital organization: oncology palliative care (N = 22), intensive care (N = 15), emergency care (N = 9), and other healthcare professionals (N = 22). Burnout and quality of life were assessed using the Maslach Burnout Inventory—Human Services Survey and WHOQOL-BREF, respectively. Analyses used complete cases for each multivariate outcome set. Results: No statistically significant multivariate differences were detected across the three clinical groups in burnout (Pillai’s Trace = 0.187; F(6, 84) = 1.442; p = 0.208) or quality of life (Pillai’s Trace = 0.146; F(10, 78) = 0.613; p = 0.798). In the secondary burnout comparison (n = 38), emotional exhaustion was higher in oncology palliative care (mean difference = 5.78; 95% CI 0.37–11.19; unadjusted p = 0.037; partial η² = 0.115). No multivariate quality-of-life difference was detected in the secondary comparison (n = 39; p = 0.387). Conclusions: The non-significant findings do not establish equivalence between clinical settings. The nominal emotional-exhaustion difference is hypothesis-generating and requires replication. Small, unequal groups, missing data, multiple testing, and limited occupational characterization constrain precision and interpretation. Full article

Vision-based sensing is increasingly important for liquefied natural gas (LNG) tank manufacturing, where missed defects in cable-related components can affect monitoring, control, and safety functions. However, industrial image datasets often contain duplicate or near-duplicate imagery, operating thresholds can be optimistically tuned on held-out test data, and abnormal labels are costly to obtain. This study evaluates LNG tank cable defect detection under a duplicate-aware and calibration-controlled protocol that separates model training, threshold calibration, and held-out testing. Using the AI-Hub LNG tank quality inspection image dataset, we compare ResNet-18, EfficientNet-B0, and ConvNeXt-Tiny supervised classifiers; PatchCore, PaDiM, and STFPM normal-only training anomaly detectors; and ResNet-18 training-label-budget experiments that retain all normal training images while varying the number of labeled abnormal training images used for model fitting. Across 36 de-duplicated final runs, EfficientNet-B0 achieved the strongest fully supervised performance (AUROC $0.9999\pm 0.0001$, F1 $0.9956\pm 0.0029$). PatchCore was the best normal-only training anomaly detector (AUROC $0.8909\pm 0.0109$, F1 $0.8666\pm 0.0228$). In the percentage-budget experiment, 1% labeled abnormal training samples already exceeded PatchCore in AUROC, F1, and false-negative rate under the fixed labeled-calibration protocol; in a finer 4–64 abnormal-training-label sweep with 90 runs, the first training budget exceeding PatchCore across AUROC, F1, and false-negative rate with 16 labeled abnormal training images. These results quantify abnormal training-label efficiency under a fixed labeled-calibration protocol, rather than the total abnormal annotation burden required to deploy the complete operating classifier. Full article

Monocular roadside cameras require accurate image-to-ground mapping and correction of view changes caused by mounting-structure deformation. We combine a horizontal ground-coordinate calibration objective with road-patch phase correlation and affine correction on selected approximately planar road sections with an approximately constant grade. The initial calibration uses 190 reviewed image–global navigation satellite system (GNSS) correspondences from 14 equally weighted cameras at seven sites. With all available control points used for fitting, the camera-balanced mean horizontal position error (MHPE) at those points decreases from 0.259 to 0.196 m (24.4%), and the all-point root mean square error (RMSE) decreases for every camera. This is in-sample fitting performance at the same control points used to estimate the mapping, not independent predictive accuracy. Complementary landmark-level leave-one-out (LOO) evaluation measures prediction at withheld points: the interior LOO decreases from 0.331 to 0.318 m and the exterior LOO from 0.445 to 0.384 m. Overall LOO decreases from 0.398 to 0.348 m, with improvement in seven out of 14 cameras, indicating geometry-dependent predictive benefit. On the original 40 correction frames, Phase–Affine has a lower observed MHPE under the present annotations: 0.392 m, compared with 0.462 m for native-resolution patch DISK + LightGlue with direct robust affine fitting; both yield 40/40 finite evaluations. Their measured mean core times are 9.858 and 106.094 ms, respectively. A 92-frame hourly experiment examines six approved patch centers, five sizes, normalized cross-correlation (NCC) thresholds, patch subsets and transformation models, retaining large finite errors and separately reporting missing transforms. Full-image learned features are more accurate than unfiltered 150 px Phase–Affine on these hourly sequences. The results demonstrate improved in-sample calibration fit and a lower measured core runtime for phase-based correction in the evaluated patch comparison. The small observed MHPE difference is interpreted cautiously because single-annotator repeatability was not formally measured. Held-out and sensitivity analyses delimit these benefits rather than establish uniform superiority across cameras, patch configurations or operating conditions. Full article

Background: Needle arthroscopy can alter not only portal size but also the diagnostic and treatment pathway by enabling direct visualization under local anesthesia and selected limited interventions. Its diffusion across joints, however, may be outpacing clinical validation. Methods: This PRISMA-ScR-guided review mapped PubMed/MEDLINE-indexed primary publications from database inception through 31 July 2026. The quantitative flow is therefore an auditable but incomplete evidence map rather than a complete census of the technology; studies indexed exclusively outside PubMed may have been missed. Backward reference-list screening was used as a completeness check, while earlier Scopus, Web of Science, and Cochrane histories were retained as sensitivity sources and not pooled into the quantitative flow. Two reviewers independently screened and charted records using a shared form. Reports were de-duplicated by PMID, DOI, and normalized title and characterized by anatomy, design, application, platform, outcomes, harms reporting, study-design hierarchy, and principal methodological limitation. Technical or cadaveric feasibility was analyzed separately from clinical and comparative evidence. Results: The final map comprised 105 unique primary publications: 49 technical, 41 clinical, and 15 cadaveric. Technical and cadaveric reports (64/105, 61.0%) outnumbered clinical reports (41/105, 39.0%), limiting estimation of clinical effectiveness. Ninety publications (85.7%) appeared from 2021 onward; the 2026 count is incomplete because the search ended on 31 July. For descriptive display across the complete map, nine reports (8.6%) were in Levels I–II and 93 (88.6%) in IV–V; among the 41 clinical reports, 29 (70.7%) were IV–V and 12 (29.3%) were I–III. NanoScope accounted for 87 of 107 platform mentions (81.3%). Diagnostic and second-look applications had the most consistent comparative rationale, but lesion-specific estimates varied by joint and reference standard. Reported harms were generally minor where surveillance was described, but rare-harm inference was limited by small samples and inconsistent adverse-event ascertainment. Conclusions: The field remains promising but unproven: technical breadth exceeds comparative clinical validation. Because the quantitative evidence map is PubMed/MEDLINE-only and dominated by technical, cadaveric, and IV–V reports, current evidence is insufficient to estimate clinical effectiveness or justify replacement of MRI or conventional arthroscopy. Needle arthroscopy should therefore be viewed as an indication-specific complement and a hypothesis-generating technology rather than a replacement platform. Multicentre comparative studies and randomized trials, where ethically and practically feasible, are needed to test patient benefit and clinical application. Full article