Search Results (582)

Assessment of the placental cord insertion (PCI) is a vital component of antenatal ultrasound examinations. PCI can be complex, particularly in cases of abnormal PCI, and requires proficient sonographer spatial perception. The current literature describes the increasing potential of three-dimensional (3D) modelling to enhance spatial awareness and understanding of complex anatomical structures. This study aimed to evaluate sonographers’ confidence in ultrasound assessment of the PCI and the potential benefit of novel 3D-printed models (3DPMs) of the PCI in ultrasound education. Sonographers employed at a large private medical imaging practice in Western Australia were invited to participate in a face-to-face presentation of two-dimensional (2D) ultrasound images, ultrasound videos, and 3DPMs of normal cord insertion (NCI), marginal cord insertion (MCI), and velamentous cord insertion (VCI). Our objective was to determine the benefit of 3DPMs in improving sonographers’ confidence and ability to spatially visualise the PCI. Thirty-three participants completed questionnaires designed to compare their confidence in assessing the PCI and their ability to spatially visualise the anatomical relationship between the placenta and PCI, before and after the presentation. There was a significant association between a participant’s year of experience and their confidence levels and spatial awareness of the PCI prior to the demonstration. The results showed the 3DPMs increased participant confidence and their spatial awareness of the PCI, with no significant association with years of experience. Additionally, participating sonographers were asked to rate the 3DPMs as an educational device. The 3DPMs were ranked as being a more useful educational tool for spatially visualising the NCI, MCI, and VCI than 2D ultrasound images and videos. Most participants responded favourably when asked whether the 3DPMs would be useful in ultrasound education, with 75.8%, 84.8%, and 97% indicating the models of NCI, MCI, and VCI, respectively, would be extremely useful. Our study has demonstrated a potential role for 3DPMs of the PCI in ultrasound education, supplementing traditional 2D educational resources. Full article

This article examines the strategies employed by Mexican secondary school students to understand unfamiliar academic vocabulary and the relationship between these strategies and their reading proficiency. Within the broader Latin American context—where low reading comprehension levels remain prevalent—the study focused on a sample of 40 first-year secondary students, categorized according to their reading level. Using two instruments, the research identified the vocabulary learning strategies used by students and assessed their effectiveness in deriving word meaning. Findings indicate that while students across reading levels use similar strategies, those with higher reading proficiency more frequently and effectively apply complex strategies such as contextual abstraction, retrieving textual information, rereading the text, and full morphological analysis. Morphological analysis proved to be the most effective strategy, provided students possessed the metalinguistic skills necessary to decompose and reconstruct word meaning from all morphemes. The study concludes that the successful use of vocabulary strategies is closely linked to students’ reading proficiency, and that reading comprehension and academic vocabulary knowledge are mutually reinforcing. These findings highlight the importance of explicitly teaching academic vocabulary in school settings as a means to enhance students’ reading performance. Full article

Background: Minimally invasive surgery (MIS) is increasingly adopted in pediatric surgical practice, yet it demands specific technical skills that require structured training. Simulation-based education offers a safe and effective environment for skill acquisition, especially in complex procedures such as thoracoscopic repair of esophageal atresia with tracheoesophageal fistula (EA-TEF). Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a 3D-printed simulator for training pediatric surgeons in thoracoscopic EA-TEF repair, assessing improvements in operative time and technical performance. Methods: A high-fidelity, 3D-printed simulator replicating neonatal thoracic anatomy was developed. Six pediatric surgeons at different training levels performed eight simulation sessions, including fistula ligation and esophageal anastomosis. Operative time and technical skill were assessed using the Stanford Microsurgery and Resident Training (SMaRT) Scale. Results: All participants showed significant improvements. The average operative time decreased from 115.6 ± 3.51 to 90 ± 6.55 min for junior trainees and from 100.5 ± 3.55 to 77.5 ± 4.94 min for senior trainees. The mean SMaRT score increased from 23.8 ± 3.18 to 38.3 ± 3.93. These results demonstrate a clear learning curve and enhanced technical performance after repeated sessions. Conclusions: Such 3D-printed simulation models represent an effective tool for pediatric MIS training. Even within a short time frame, repeated practice significantly improves surgical proficiency, supporting their integration into pediatric surgical curricula as an ethical, safe, and efficient educational strategy. Full article

We propose a data-efficient framework for automating sowing operations by agricultural robots in densely mixed polyculture environments. This study addresses the challenge of enabling robots to identify suitable sowing positions with minimal labeled data by integrating image-based field sensing with expert agricultural knowledge. We collected 84 RGB-depth images from seven field sites, labeled by synecological farming practitioners of varying proficiency levels, and trained a regression model to estimate optimal sowing positions and seeding quantities. The model’s predictions were comparable to those of intermediate-to-advanced practitioners across diverse field conditions. To implement this estimation in practice, we mounted a Kinect v2 sensor on a robot arm and integrated its 3D spatial data with axis-specific movement control. We then applied a trajectory optimization algorithm based on the traveling salesman problem to generate efficient sowing paths. Simulated trials incorporating both computation and robotic control times showed that our method reduced sowing operation time by 51% compared to random planning. These findings highlight the potential of interpretable, low-data machine learning models for rapid adaptation to complex agroecological systems and demonstrate a practical approach to combining structured human expertise with sensor-based automation in biodiverse farming environments. Full article

Digital skills are increasingly vital for enhancing employability, as they equip individuals to meet the evolving demands of the modern workforce. Therefore, this paper examines the impact of digital skills on employability, focusing on the influence of both basic and above-basic levels of information and data literacy, communication and collaboration, problem-solving, digital content creation, and safety skills, considered key components of digital competence. The research employs regression analysis using secondary data extracted from the Eurostat database. Based on data from 32 European countries, the findings indicate that three proxies for digital skills, communication and collaboration, digital content creation, and safety, significantly and positively influence employability. The contribution of this paper to the existing literature on digital skills and employability is twofold. First, by evaluating the influence of five categories of digital skills across different proficiency levels on employment rates, the study sheds light on which specific digital skills have the most substantial impact on employability in today’s labor market. Second, the findings provide a foundation for formulating recommendations aimed at enhancing the digital capabilities of the labor force. Full article

Background: Motor competence (MC) plays a critical role in shaping children’s physical activity, health-related fitness, and weight status. However, few studies have explored these interrelationships during middle childhood. Objectives: The current study aimed to examine the relationships between MC and physical activity (PA), health-related fitness (HRF), and weight status (WS) in children during middle childhood (9–10 years). Simultaneously, the study aimed to find possible differences in PA, HRF, and WS between children with different levels of MC. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, the TGMD-2 (MC), UNIFITTEST 6–60 (HRF), ActiGraph GT3X (PA), and anthropometry (WS) were administered to 86 children (59 boys, age range of 9–10 years and mean age of 10.1 ± 0.6 years). Results: A significant strong association was observed between MC and HRF (p < 0.01, Cramer‘s V = 0.42). Significant moderate associations were observed between MC and WS (p < 0.05, Cramer’s V = 0.34) and between MC and PA (p < 0.05, Cramer‘s V = 0.25). Children with high MC proficiency demonstrated significantly higher levels of HRF (p < 0.01; large ES) and PA (p < 0.05; moderate ES) and a healthier WS (p < 0.01; moderate ES) than those with low MC proficiency. Similarly, children with moderate MC proficiency outperformed children with low MC in terms of HRF and WS. Conclusions: The strong associations between MC and key health indicators such as PA, HRF, and WS suggest that movement proficiency in middle childhood should be viewed as a cornerstone of health promotion. Although no causal claims can be made, the results emphasize the practical importance of integrating targeted motor skill development—especially FMSs—into school-based physical education and extracurricular programs. Supporting MC at this age may be a decisive step toward fostering long-term engagement in physical activity and improving children’s overall health trajectories. Full article

Chinese lacks explicit word boundary markers, creating frequent temporary segmental ambiguities where character sequences permit multiple plausible lexical analyses. Skilled native (L1) Chinese readers resolve these ambiguities efficiently. However, mechanisms underlying word segmentation in second language (L2) Chinese reading remain poorly understood. Our study investigated: (1) whether L2 readers experience greater difficulty processing temporary segmental ambiguities compared to L1 readers, and (2) whether visual boundary cues can facilitate ambiguity resolution in L2 reading. We measured the eye movements of 102 skilled L1 and 60 high-proficiency L2 readers for sentences containing temporarily ambiguous three-character incremental words (e.g., “音乐剧” [musical]), where the initial two characters (“音乐” [music]) also form a valid word. Sentences were presented using either neutral mono-color displays providing no segmentation cues, or color-coded displays marking word boundaries. The color-coded displays employed either uniform coloring to promote resolution of the segmental ambiguity or contrasting colors for the two-character embedded word versus the final character to induce a segmental misanalysis. The L2 group read more slowly than the L1 group, employing a cautious character-by-character reading strategy. Both groups nevertheless appeared to process the segmental ambiguity effectively, suggesting shared segmentation strategies. The L1 readers showed little sensitivity to visual boundary cues, with little evidence that this influenced their ambiguity processing. By comparison, L2 readers showed greater sensitivity to these cues, with some indication that they affected ambiguity processing. The overall sentence-level effects of color coding word boundaries were nevertheless modest for both groups, suggesting little influence of visual boundary cues on overall reading fluency for either L1 or L2 readers. Full article

In response to challenges around student engagement and teacher technological proficiency, this paper looks at the impact of gamification on students’ mathematical resilience whilst monitoring their mathematical anxiety plus investigating teachers’ experiences, willingness, and professional development ambitions to utilise gamified instructional tools in the mathematics classroom. Drawing on strategies to motivate students, the aim of this paper is to unbundle gamification in enacting curriculum change and the role of teacher professional development in using the pedagogical approach in mathematics in Ireland. Ireland is currently experiencing second-level curriculum reforms that are placing particular emphasis on digital competence and technological fluency from both teachers and students. With teachers highlighting the gap in educators’ pedagogical skills for the smooth roll out of recent curriculum reform due to the lack of knowledge and competency in technological teaching strategies, this study is both relevant and timely. Games have been used in multiple industries aiming to motivate participants and increase engagement on a particular matter. However, the term “gamification” has been coined by Pelling as the use of games in a non-gaming context. Current students are very technologically savvy due to the exposure of software applications from a young age and the integration of technological appliances in all walks of life. Traditional teaching and learning strategies are potentially seen as monotonous and somewhat boring to today’s students. Utilising game-based design such as leaderboards, points, and badges encourages motivation and enhances engagement of students. With this in mind, and the rate of change in mathematics curricula globally in recent years, there is a significant emphasis on the necessity of professional development initiatives to adapt at the same rate. Full article

Rectal cancer management necessitates a rigorous multidisciplinary strategy, emphasizing precise staging and detailed risk stratification to inform optimal therapeutic decision-making. Obtaining an accurate histological diagnosis before initiating treatment is essential. Comprehensive staging integrates clinical evaluation, thorough medical history analysis, assessment of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) levels, and computed tomography (CT) imaging of the abdomen and thorax. High-resolution pelvic magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), utilizing dedicated rectal protocols, is critical for identifying recurrence risks and delineating precise anatomical relationships. Endoscopic ultrasound further refines staging accuracy by determining the tumor infiltration depth in early-stage cancers, while preoperative colonoscopy effectively identifies synchronous colorectal lesions. In early-stage rectal cancers (T1–T2, N0, and M0), radical surgical resection remains the standard of care, although transanal local excision can be selectively indicated for certain T1N0 tumors. In contrast, locally advanced rectal cancers (T3, T4, and N+) characterized by microsatellite stability or proficient mismatch repair are optimally managed with total neoadjuvant therapy (TNT), which combines chemoradiotherapy with oxaliplatin-based systemic chemotherapy. Additionally, tumors exhibiting high microsatellite instability or mismatch repair deficiency respond favorably to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs). The evaluation of tumor response following neoadjuvant therapy, utilizing MRI and endoscopic assessments, facilitates individualized treatment planning, including non-operative approaches for patients with confirmed complete clinical responses who comply with rigorous follow-up. Recent advancements in molecular characterization, targeted therapies, and immunotherapy highlight a significant evolution towards personalized medicine. The effective integration of these innovations requires enhanced interdisciplinary collaboration to improve patient prognosis and quality of life. Full article

The initial saccade of experienced readers tends to land halfway between the beginning and the middle of words, at a position originally referred to as the preferred viewing location (PVL). This study investigated whether a simple physical manipulation—namely, increasing the saliency (brightness or color) of the letter located at the PVL—can positively influence saccadic targeting strategies and optimize reading performance. An eye-movement experiment was conducted with 25 adults and 24 s graders performing a lexical decision task. Results showed that this manipulation had no effect on initial landing positions in proficient readers, who already landed most frequently at the PVL, suggesting that PVL saliency is irrelevant once automatized saccade targeting routines are established. In contrast, the manipulation shifted the peak of the landing site distribution toward the PVL for a cluster of readers with immature saccadic strategies (with low reading-level scores and ILPs close to the beginning of words), but only in the brightness condition, and had a more compelling effect in a cluster with oculomotor instability (with flattened and diffuse landing position curves along with oculomotor and visuo-attentional deficits). These findings suggest that guiding the eyes toward the PVL may offer a novel way to improve reading efficiency, particularly for individuals with oculomotor and visuo-attentional difficulties. Full article

This study investigates L3 Spanish perception patterns among L1 Korean–L2 English bilinguals with varying L3 proficiency levels, aiming to test the applicability of traditional L2 perceptual models in multilingual contexts. We conducted two experiments: a cross-linguistic discrimination task and a cross-language identification task. Results revealed unexpected outcomes unique to multilingual contexts. Participants had difficulty reliably discriminating between cross-linguistic categories and showed little improvement over time. Similarly, they did not demonstrate progress in categorizing sounds specific to each language. The absence of a clear correlation between proficiency levels and the ability to discriminate and categorize sounds suggests that input distribution and language-specific activation may play more critical roles in L3 perception, consistent with the distributional learning approach. We argue that phoneme distributions from all three languages likely occupy a shared perceptual space. When a specific language is activated, the relevant phoneme distributions become dominant, while others are suppressed. This selective activation, while not crucial in traditional L1 and L2 studies, is critical in L3 contexts, like the one examined here, where managing multiple phonemic systems complicates discrimination and categorization. These findings underscore the need for theoretical adjustments in multilingual phonetic acquisition models and highlight the complexities of language processing in multilingual settings. Full article

Based on acoustic feature analysis, this study systematically examines the differences in vowel pronunciation characteristics among Mandarin learners at various proficiency levels. A speech corpus containing samples from advanced, intermediate, and elementary learners (N = 50) and standard speakers (N = 10) was constructed, with a total of 5880 samples. Support Vector Machine (SVM) and ID3 decision tree algorithms were employed to classify vowel formant parameters (F1-F2) patterns. The results demonstrate that SVM significantly outperforms the ID3 algorithm in vowel classification, with an average accuracy of 92.09% for the three learner groups (92.38% for advanced, 92.25% for intermediate, and 91.63% for elementary), an improvement of 2.05 percentage points compared to ID3 (p < 0.05). Learners’ vowel production exhibits systematic deviations, particularly pronounced in complex vowels for the elementary group. For instance, the apical vowel “ẓ” has a deviation of 2.61 Bark (standard group: F1 = 3.39/F2 = 8.13; elementary group: F1 = 3.42/F2 = 10.74), while the advanced group’s deviations are generally less than 0.5 Bark (e.g., vowel “a” deviation is only 0.09 Bark). The difficulty of tongue position control strongly correlates with the deviation magnitude (r = 0.87, p < 0.001). This study confirms the effectiveness of objective assessment methods based on formant analysis in speech acquisition research, provides a theoretical basis for algorithm optimization in speech evaluation systems, and holds significant application value for the development of Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) systems and the improvement of multi-ethnic Mandarin speech recognition technology. Full article

Background: The United States has the highest number of immigrants in the world, with over 46 million foreign-born residents as of 2022. A growing number of migrants originate from Latin America, driven by factors such as economic instability, food insecurity, and crime. This study explores their experiences and perceptions regarding trust in the criminal justice system (CJS) in both their home countries and the United States. Methods: This study surveyed 500 migrants at a transitional institution in a U.S.–Mexico border city in the summer of 2023. The survey assessed confidence in law enforcement, immigration officers, courts, and government institutions using a 5-point Likert scale. Results: Migrants reported significantly higher confidence in the U.S. CJS compared to that of their home countries. Multivariate analysis revealed that satisfaction with border officials, documentation status, English proficiency, and health were positively associated with confidence in the U.S. CJS, while employment status, traveling with family, and fear of crime correlated with lower confidence. Conclusions: This study highlights the stark contrast in migrants’ confidence levels between their home countries and the U.S. criminal justice system. While migrants view the U.S. system as more legitimate, challenges such as fear of crime and legal uncertainties persist. Full article

Background/Objectives: Hispanic immigrants (HIs) in the U.S.A. are disproportionately affected by cervical cancer compared to other groups, at least partly due to low HPV vaccination rates. The aim of this study was to investigate strategies to improve HPV vaccine attitudes and intent of HIs in the U.S.A. by developing and testing the effectiveness of video-based interventions. Methods: This study employed a two-phase mixed-methods approach. In the first phase, focus groups with new and established HIs explored perspectives, concerns about HPV vaccination, types of information to include in a video intervention, and how an effective intervention should be designed. Findings from the focus groups guided the creation of seven short educational videos, including a summary video and a testimonial-based video, addressing key questions about HPV and its vaccine. The second phase, which involved a nationwide survey of 1500 Spanish-speaking HIs, revealed a significant change in overall HPV vaccine attitude generally, and a significant increase in both HPV vaccine intent and attitudes among parents of unvaccinated children. Results: Regression analysis revealed general vaccine attitudes (β = 0.620, p < 0.001), English proficiency (β = 0.066, p = 0.01), and gender (β = −0.072, p = 0.002), as significant predictors of attitudinal changes. Notably, females exhibited less favorable post-intervention attitudes compared to males. Additionally, perceived care from video creators was a strong predictor of normalized gains in vaccine attitudes (β = 0.270, p < 0.001). Video content effectiveness varied; the video addressing vaccine side effects demonstrated the highest impact on attitude improvement. Testimonials and the summary video were also effective in fostering positive changes in attitudes. Despite differences in trust levels between new and established immigrants, both groups valued culturally tailored, Spanish-language information from credible sources. Conclusion: Addressing language and cultural barriers can improve trust in healthcare interventions among Hispanic immigrants in the U.S.A. Public health initiatives should consider these factors to more effectively reduce HPV vaccine hesitancy in this population. Full article

Despite being fundamental for speech processing, L2 perceptual training often lacks attention in L2 classrooms, especially among English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners navigating complex English phonology. The current study investigates the impact of the blended phonetic training program incorporating HVPT features on enhancing L2 perception and listening comprehension skills in Korean elementary EFL learners. Fifty-seven learners, aged 11 to 12 years, participated in a four-week intervention program. They were trained on 13 challenging consonant phonemes for Korean learners, using multimedia tools for practice. Pre- and posttests assessed L2 perception and listening comprehension. They are grouped into three proficiency levels based on listening comprehension tests. The results showed significant improvements in L2 perception (p = 0.01) with small and in listening comprehension (p < 0.001) with small-to-medium effects. The lower proficiency students demonstrated the largest gains. The correlation between L2 perception and listening comprehension was observed both in pre- (r = 0.427 **) and posttests (r = 0.479 ***). Findings underscore the importance of integrating explicit phonetic instruction with HVPT to enhance L2 listening skills among EFL learners. Full article