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Assessing pain intensity in people from non-western countries: a multicenter study comparing four pain scales in adults with musculoskeletal pain in Bhutan
No full textData source: Supporting information, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpain.2025.105492Although the Numerical Rating Scale (NRS) is commonly recommended for use in research and clinical practice internationally, recent research in non-western countries questions its utility in some countries. We aimed to evaluate validity and utility of four commonly used pain intensity measures in a sample of participants with musculoskeletal pain in Bhutan. Two hundred forty-seven adults with musculoskeletal pain visiting three hospitals rated their one-week recalled worst and average pain using all four scales, and indicated their preferred scale. For analysis, participant responses were classified as being a correct or an incorrect response, where an “incorrect response” was defined as a response that did not meet pre-defined criteria. All four scales demonstrated adequate construct validity.
The VAS and NRS had significantly higher incorrect response rates (9% each) than the other scales. Participants who were older and with less education had higher rates of incorrect responses on the NRS and VAS. The FPS-R (45%) was the most preferred scale, followed by the NRS (26%); there were no significant differences in preference rates between the VRS (15%) and VAS (5%). The findings suggest that the FPS-R should be used to assess pain intensity in Bhutanese people with musculoskeletal pain, especially in individuals with no formal education
Film, television and streaming media
No full textThis entry provides an overview of film, television and streaming platform media depicting gender- and sexually-diverse characters, themes and narratives, and the emergence of scholarship on the topic in relation to queer studies. Contrary to the pedestrian claim that LGBTQ+ peoples and communities were, until recently, invisibilized in mainstream film and television, or only depicted in underground and art-house texts, queer scholarship has long maintained the fact that varied and diverse depictions have always been a part of the production across these two media forms. The substantial shifts in depiction over the past two decades, however, have provided fertile areas of study for queer scholarship, and it is increasingly recognized that film and television play a substantial cultural role in queer lives
Total neoadjuvant therapy in early-onset rectal cancer: A multicentre prospective cohort study.
No full textAIM: The incidence of early-onset (age <50 years) rectal cancer (EORC) is rising globally, often presenting at an advanced stage. Total neoadjuvant therapy (TNT) is increasingly utilised in the management of advanced rectal cancers due to improved response and survival rates. However, it remains unclear whether EORC in an unscreened population responds similarly to TNT compared to average or late-onset (age ≥50 years) rectal cancer (AORC). METHOD: This study included consecutive patients treated with curative intent with TNT for rectal cancer at three South Australian hospitals between 2019 and 2024. Patients were divided into EORC and AORC cohorts. The primary outcome was overall complete response (oCR) rate, defined as the proportion of patients who achieved a clinical complete response (cCR) and/or pathological complete response (pCR). Secondary outcomes included compliance and treatment-related toxicity. RESULTS: Of 202 eligible patients, 48 (23.8%) were in the EORC cohort and 154 (76.2%) in the AORC cohort. No significant difference in oCR rate was observed between EORC and AORC patients (43.8% vs. 37.9%, P = 0.470). cCR, pCR and complete M1 response rates were also similar between the two groups. EORC patients experienced significantly less Grade 3-4 chemotherapy-induced toxicity compared to AORC patients (2.1% vs. 25.3%, P < 0.001), but reported higher rates of patient-reported Grade 3-4 radiotherapy-induced toxicity than AORC patients (31.3% vs. 12.3%, P = 0.004). CONCLUSION: EORC patients exhibit comparable overall tumour response rates to AORC patients treated with TNT. However, toxicity profiles differ, with EORC patients experiencing less chemotherapy-induced toxicity but more patient-reported radiation-induced toxicity
Medicines Intelligence CRE 60-Day Prescriptions Project 1 (Discovery)
No full textLink to a related website: https://osf.io/5mv3n/, URL of other reportDescription: In September 2023, the Australian Government introduced “60-day prescriptions” so that eligible people with stable chronic conditions can be provided with twice the amount of medication on a single prescription. The first stage was introduced on 1 September 2023 and included commonly used medicines for cardiovascular and other conditions. The objectives of this discovery project are to characterise the uptake of 60-day prescriptions included in Stage 1 and describe the characteristics of persons dispensed 60-day medicines. These results will be contextualised against the uptake, and patient characteristics, of the equivalent 30-day prescriptions for the included medicines
FRP-RC columns reinforced with novel FRP strip spiral: Axial compression tests and theoretical model
No full textTraditional rod-shaped fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) stirrups face challenges such as fiber kinking, strength reduction at bends, and slip failure at lap joints, compromising concrete confinement and ductility. To address these issues, this study proposes a novel glass FRP (GFRP) strip spiral (N-GFRP) fabricated via vacuum-assisted winding. Axial compression tests on 12 circular concrete columns (200 x 600 mm) reinforced with N-GFRP spirals or traditional rod-shaped GFRP stirrups were conducted. Results demonstrate that N-GFRP spirals eliminate lap-slip failure, enhancing confinement efficiency. Columns with N-GFRP spirals exhibited 12.8 % and 20.9 % higher peak axial load capacity compared to those with traditional stirrups for GFRP and steel longitudinal bars, respectively, alongside ductility improvements of 16.3 % and 4.3 %. Finally, the predictions from existing constitutive models of FRP confined concrete are compared with the experimental results, and the effective coefficient of the most accurate model is refined for concrete confined with N-GFRP spiral. Furthermore, a strength design equation for FRP-RC columns reinforced with N-GFRP spiral is proposed and verified. This work highlights the superior performance of N-GFRP spirals, providing a viable solution for durable and high-capacity FRP-reinforced concrete structures
Preferential consumption of invasive over native prey by rocky intertidal predators
No full textData source: Supplementary data, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17121769Invasive species have broad scale impacts on recipient ecosystems, and are one of the major drivers of the currently observed biodiversity decline. Invasive prey species can disrupt native food webs through altering trophic interactions between predators and prey. Despite the potentially wide-ranging consequences of these changes, the dynamics of such interactions are yet to be explored in-depth. Here we assessed the frequency dependent predation towards invasive and native bivalve prey (Xenostrobus securis and Brachidontes variabilis, respectively) by different native predator types - a crab (Hemigrapsus penicilatus) and a predatory gastropod (Reishia clavigera). Greater absolute consumption of the invasive compared to native prey was shown by both predators. Further, there was a clear preference for invasive prey over native prey by both predators, even when invader availability was scarce. These results show that the predators are able to readily consume, and potentially restrict the spread of, the invasive prey species. However, the patterns of consumption observed experimentally here and the subsequent suggested biotic resistance to invasion are not reflected in field populations as the invasive bivalve prey continues to spread locally. We highlight the need to incorporate multiple types of investigation - both laboratory and field based - to provide a comprehensive understanding of trophic interactions, and the broader impacts invasive prey species may exert on recipient communities
FairGP: A Scalable and Fair Graph Transformer Using Graph Partitioning
No full textRecent studies have highlighted significant fairness issues in Graph Transformer (GT) models, particularly against subgroups defined by sensitive features. Additionally, GTs are computationally intensive and memory-demanding, limiting their application to large-scale graphs. Our experiments demonstrate that graph partitioning can enhance the fairness of GT models while reducing computational complexity. To understand this improvement, we conducted a theoretical investigation into the root causes of fairness issues in GT models. We found that the sensitive features of higher-order nodes disproportionately influence lower-order nodes, resulting in sensitive feature bias. We propose Fairness-aware scalable GT based on Graph Partitioning (FairGP), which partitions the graph to minimize the negative impact of higher-order nodes. By optimizing attention mechanisms, FairGP mitigates the bias introduced by global attention, thereby enhancing fairness. Extensive empirical evaluations on six real-world datasets validate the superior performance of FairGP in achieving fairness compared to state-of-the-art methods.</jats:p
Observer variability in CT Angiography Carotid Segmentation: assessing variability to set minimum clinical performance
No full textBackground and Purpose: This work evaluates carotid atherosclerosis quantification from computed tomography angiography (CTA), by novice and expert human contours. Variability sources are critically assessed to establish the minimum performance of future machine learning (ML) tools.
Methods: We analyzed extra cranial carotid lesions, with no, mild, moderate, and severe atherosclerosis (n = 10/group). CTA datasets of 24 patients (n = 6/group) were re-sampled to 2.5 mm axial thicknesses. Lumen, calcific plaque, and soft plaque were manually contoured by three expert experienced clinicians (neuroradiologist, vascular neurologist, and vascular surgeon), a medical physicist (MP), and a radiographer. Contouring was repeated several months later for intra-operator variability and again after development of a protocol. Clinicians blindly ranked each other's contours for descriptive statistical analysis.
Results: Relative to internal carotid origin, plaque began a median of 3.75 mm inferior (Interquartile Range [IQR] 0.8-7 mm), extended 18 mm superior (IQR: 13.0-29.6 mm), with a median total length of 24.4 mm (IQR: 14.7-37.4 mm). Clinicians and non-clinicians contoured lumen and calcific plaque similarly (dice similarity coefficient [DSC]: 0.87/0.62 respectively), but varied greater for soft plaque (DSC: 0.21). Neuroradiologist contours were consistently smaller, from approaching the partial-volume artifact conservatively. Clinicians favored their own contours, most pronouncedly the neuroradiologist (standard deviation: 0.00). Establishing a contouring protocol was not found to improve the agreement between clinicians.
Conclusions: CTA carotid pathology contouring inherently has limited clinician agreement due to small structure size and poor contrast. The reference-contour datasets produced by experienced clinicians are prone to inter-and intra-variability which must be carefully considered to ensure ML models developed from such datasets are not fatally flawe
Exploring the relationship between allostatic load and osteoarthritis: a cross-sectional analysis from the North West Adelaide Health Study
No full textData source: Exploring the relationship between allostatic load and osteoarthritis: a cross-sectional analysis from the North West Adelaide Health Study dataset, https://doi. org/10.1016/j.ocarto.2025.100689Results: Overall, 1600 participants were eligible for inclusion in the analysis. The OA group (n = 459) and the group without arthritis (n = 1151) had mean AL scores of 3.96 (SD 2.3) and 2.68 (SD 2.0), respectively. In adjusted analyses, each one-unit increase in AL was associated with a 12 % increased odds of OA presence (OR = 1.12, 95 % CI 1.04, 1.19, P = 0.002). There was a similar 11 % increase in odds of the presence of self-reported joint pain for every one-unit increase in AL score (OR = 1.11, 95 % CI 1.04, 1.18, P = 0.001). Conclusions: There is a cross-sectional association between AL and the presence of OA and self-reported joint pain. Further investigations are warranted using longitudinal data.
Objective: Cumulative stress-response system dysregulation, known as allostatic load (AL), is suggested as a possible mechanism that may connect upstream health determinants with OA. Our objective was to evaluate the cross-sectional association between AL and the presence of OA.
Design: This cross-sectional study used Stage Two (2004–2006) data from the North West Adelaide Health Study (NWAHS), a population-based cohort study. Osteoarthritis and joint pain were defined using self-report and medication data. Allostatic load was a composite index of nine equally-weighted biomarkers; systolic and diastolic blood pressures, waist-hip ratio, body mass index, total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein, glycated haemoglobin, interleukin 6 and tumour necrosis factor alpha. Binary logistic regression models estimated the association between AL and OA, with adjustment for demographic, health behaviour and comorbidity covariates
Assembly of silver nanoparticle on one-dimensional supramolecular scaffolds for bacterial infection treatment
No full textData source: supporting information, https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.5c12713Bacterial antibiotic resistance has emerged as a major global threat to human health. The rapid spread of multidrug-resistant bacteria severely limits therapeutic and diagnostic options in clinical practice. Silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) exhibit potent antibacterial activity due to their unique antimicrobial mechanisms. However, their tendency to aggregate in bodily fluids significantly compromises their efficacy. To overcome this limitation, we developed supramolecular scaffold-based assemblies of Ag NPs. Specifically, we utilized molecular assemblies as soft templates to guide the directional organization of Ag NPs into one-dimensional nanostructures. The resulting TPE/Ag assemblies demonstrated excellent biocompatibility, while effectively suppressing inflammation and promoting tissue repair in MRSA-infected deep skin wounds. Both in vitro and in vivo antibacterial assays confirmed their exceptional germicidal activity, which was attributed to enhanced reactive oxygen species generation and controlled silver ion release. Moving forward, TPE/Ag assemblies may represent a promising strategy for developing novel biological therapies for the treatment of infectious diseases