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Evaluating AI-driven characters in extended reality (XR) healthcare simulations: A systematic review
Get PDFAI-driven characters in extended reality (XR) healthcare simulations are increasingly used for clinical training, yet their effectiveness, implementation, and quality assurance remain poorly understood.
We conducted a systematic review of 132 studies published between January 2015 and July 2025, including 11 randomized controlled trials (RCTs), sourced from biomedical, computing, and education databases and targeted proceedings. Most studies used virtual reality (62.1%) and focused on effectiveness (n = 71), with fewer examining implementation (n = 45) or quality assurance (n = 44). Meta-analysis of two RCTs found a large effect on knowledge and decision-making (Hedges’ g = 1.31, 95% CI 0.08–2.54, = 85%), while one RCT reported faster task performance with AI-driven characters (g = -0.68, 95% CI -1.32 to -0.04). Certainty of evidence was low due to small samples and high heterogeneity. Implementation success was often associated with phased roll-outs and faculty training, but quality assurance practices (particularly bias audits and transparency measures) were rarely documented.
The review proposes the DASEX framework to address these gaps and guide future integration of AI-driven characters in XR training
Improving tribological efficiency of isopropyl palmitate oil with cellulose nanocrystals: a sustainable approach for high-performance lubricants
Get PDFThis article explores the potential of cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) as a lubricant additive for isopropyl palmitate (IPP) oil to enhance its tribological performance. CNCs, derived from renewable sources, offer a sustainable and environmentally friendly alternative to traditional lubricant additives. A two-step method was used to prepare the nanolubricants, with visual control and dynamic light scattering measurements to assess their temporal stability. The viscous behavior of the nanolubricants, in terms of viscosity and viscosity index, was evaluated at different temperatures. The study assesses the effectiveness of CNC/IPP oil blends as lubricants through tribological tests, including evaluations under pure sliding and rolling–sliding conditions. Studies on worn surfaces were conducted using surface roughness analysis, Raman mapping, and XPS, and the thermal stability was examined to determine their suitability for different operating conditions. CNCs significantly reduce friction by up to 44% and improve wear resistance compared to the neat IPP base oil, presumably due to a self-repairing effect. Furthermore, an improvement of the thermal conductivity of pure IPP base oil has been revealed with increasing CNC concentration. This study enhances the understanding of cellulose nanocrystals as lubricant additives and their potential to transform traditional lubricating oils into high-performance and sustainable solutions
Unmet need for autism-aware care for gynaecological, menstrual and sexual wellbeing
Get PDFAbstract
Autism can make menstruation and menopause and other aspects of reproductive and sexual health (RSH) more difficult. However, healthcare professionals (HCPs) often fail to provide autism-aware care, and often lack the skills or confidence to discuss RSH with patients. This study explored whether autistic people experience particular difficulties and have unmet needs when seeking RSH care. Online surveys consisting of forced-choice items and free-text boxes were completed by 136 autistic adults in the United Kingdom. Quantitative data were analysed using standard parametric and non-parametric tests. Qualitative data underwent thematic analysis. The data provide a clear picture of unmet needs for autism-aware healthcare for RSH. The quantitative data and qualitative analysis revealed that respondents felt: (a) uncomfortable discussing menstrual issues, menopause and sexual wellbeing; (b) that HCPs rarely accommodate their sensory needs and communication preferences; and (c) that HCPs rarely demonstrated awareness of how autism can affect RSH. This novel study highlighted widespread unmet needs for appropriate RSH care for autistic people. Effort is required to enhance HCPs’ ability to provide autism-aware care for RSH. The findings could inform the development of resources and training to improve healthcare for autistic people.
Lay abstract
Autistic people often experience difficulties with healthcare, and are more likely than neurotypical people to have unmet healthcare needs. They may also be more likely to find menstruation and menopause more difficult than neurotypical women. Healthcare professionals (HCPs) often have insufficient training and support to work with autistic adults, and they often lack the skills or confidence to discuss reproductive and sexual health (RSH) with patients. When these two issues are combined, it would appear that autistic people may experience particular difficulties when seeking RSH care. The aim of this study was to explore autistic people’s experiences of healthcare related to RSH in the United Kingdom. Surveys were distributed with assistance of an autism charity, and were completed by 136 adults. The survey consisted mainly of tick-box responses, but there were also several opportunities for participants to write comments about their experiences. Respondents felt that HCPs almost never seem to know how autism affects their RSH. There was broad agreement that HCPs need to be more aware of the impact of autism on healthcare experiences in general, and the specific impacts of autism on RSH. The data provide a clear picture of unmet needs for autism-aware healthcare for RSH, but further research is required to explore HCPs’ knowledge about how autism affects RSH. Combined with our findings, such research could inform the development of resources and training to improve healthcare for autistic people
Federated Learning for Early Cardiac Anomaly Prediction in Cross-Silo IoMT Environments
No full textEarly detection of cardiovascular anomalies remains critical for proactive patient care, especially within the growing ecosystem of Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) devices. This study explores the application of Federated Learning (FL) to predict early cardiac events using electrocardiogram (ECG) signals across heterogeneous IoMT silos without centralized data sharing. We focus on Premature Ventricular Contraction (PVC) as an example of early event prediction. Using three realworld ECG datasets (PTB-XL, Chapman-Shaoxing, and MITBIH), we simulate cross-silo environments where local models are trained independently and aggregated through FL. Our experiments demonstrate that local models can already achieve high classification performance, but global models obtained via FL lead to consistent improvements in macro precision, recall, and F1-scores across datasets. Visual analysis of early ECG segments further highlights inter-dataset variability, emphasizing the importance of silo-specific characteristics. The results validate that FL is a promising strategy to enable scalable, privacypreserving, and accurate early cardiovascular event prediction in
IoMT systems, bridging clinical silos while safeguarding sensitive
patient data
Domestication as the driver of lower chronic stress levels in fish in catch-and-release recreational fisheries and aquaculture versus wild conspecifics
Get PDFThe manipulation of species’ attributes through selective breeding can produce domesticated traits including decreased stress responses (i.e., selecting for high stress resilience). Common carp Cyprinus carpio (“carp”) have been domesticated for centuries, with domesticated forms frequently used to enhance recreational catchand-release fisheries around the world. In Atlantic salmon Salmo salar (“salmon”), two primary strains are evident, a wild strain and domesticated aquaculture strain.
Here, we compared scale cortisol concentrations (a biomarker of fish chronic stress levels) between domesticated carp in catch-and-release pond fisheries and wild carp in waters with no angling. Carp of low scale cortisol concentration were apparent in all sampled populations, suggesting individuals of low stress sensitivity are encountered in both wild and domesticated strains, and in natural and captive environments.
Carp with relatively high levels of scale cortisol were, however, only present in wild carp, suggesting high phenotypic variability in their chronic stress responses, with some individuals being highly sensitive to stress. In some wild carp, elevated scale cortisol concentrations could also have been indicative of adaptive responses to their heterogenous environments. We then compared wild versus farmed salmon scale
cortisol levels, and found a similar pattern, with relatively high scale cortisol levels only detected in wild fish. These results indicate that while domesticated carp and salmon are exposed to potentially stressful environments, they appear to have some resilience against the adverse effects of chronic stress
Personality Profiling for Literary Character Dialogue Agents with Human Level Attributes
No full textEquipping personalities to dialogue agents can help to better engage end-users. However, how to profile personality remains an open research question due to the difficulties of obtaining real human data. As classic literary characters often encapsulate typical human personality traits, literature books has been used as a high quality data source to construct personality profiles for dialogue agents. Existing work mainly focuses on using external reviews and human experts’ annotations to profile character personalities. The in-text comments about the personality of characters in a literature book itself have been ignored. In this paper, we propose a new NLP task called character comments annotation to annotate the in-text comments about the personality of characters including dialogue utterances and surrounding text, paragraphs mentioning a character. We constructed new personality annotated dialogue datasets based on Gutenberg literature book project. We propose a workflow to automatically profile literary characters from literature novel books. Two personality profiling models have been proposed, including (i) psychological personality traits vocabulary-based spectrum (spectrums) approach and (ii) a tf-idf based words selection as a baseline approach. We applied the proposed personality models in dialogue response prediction tasks with ranking-based and generative dialogue agents. The results show that the fine-tuned dialogue agents with spectrums profiles surpass those trained without them by 2.5% (Hits 1@20) for ranking-based, and by 8% (Rouge-1) for generative agents. The implementation of the workflow with study-related resources is publicly available: https://github.com/nicolay-r/book-persona-retrieve
Dilemmas in Visual Anthropology and Sociology in the Era of Artificial Intelligence
Get PDFScholars worldwide are in dialogue about using Artificial Intelligence (AI) in various fields of research. It has supported enhancing work efficiency, including social science research. Although ethical use of AI is still fuzzy, the use of AI in visual anthropological and sociological research that entails the Interpretive Approach raises several questions. This editorial highlights three key questions: Are researchers satisfied with the interpretation (the meaning created) by AI, i.e., the authenticity of the interpretation? Can AI reach the depth of the details of the visual object being interpreted? Thirdly, what ethical issues would AI-based research encounter if AI were highly supportive? Answering these questions, however, is not easy. Since a detailed analysis of these components needs rigorous research work, we consider issues that will be the basis for further research in this editorial note. Hence, the purpose of this note is to bring the research agenda to the forefront of researchers for further investigation rather than answering specific research questions mentioned here
Genome analyses suggest recent speciation and postglacial isolation in the Norwegian lemming.
Get PDFThe Norwegian lemming (Lemmus lemmus) is a small rodent distributed across the Fennoscandian mountain tundra and the Kola Peninsula. The Norwegian lemming likely evolved during the Late Pleistocene and inhabited Fennoscandia shortly prior to the Last Glacial Maximum. However, the exact timing and origins of the species, and its phylogenetic position relative to the closely related Siberian lemming (Lemmus sibiricus) remain disputed. Moreover, the presence of ancient or contemporary gene flow between both species is largely untested. The Norwegian lemming displays characteristic phenotypic and behavioral adaptations (e.g., coat color, aggression) that are not present in other Lemmus species. We generated a de novo genome assembly for the Norwegian lemming and resequenced nine modern and two ancient Lemmus spp. genomes. We show that all Lemmus species form distinct monophyletic clades, with concordant topology between the mitochondrial and nuclear genome phylogenies. The Siberian lemming is divided into two distinct but paraphyletic clades, one in the east and one in the west, where the western clade represents a sister taxon to the Norwegian lemming. We estimate that the Norwegian and western Siberian lemming diverged shortly before the Last Glacial Maximum, making the Norwegian lemming one of the youngest known mammalian species. We did not find any indication of gene flow between L. lemmus and L. sibiricus, suggesting postglacial isolation of L. lemmus. Furthermore, we identify species-specific genomic differences in genes related to coat color and fat transport, which are likely associated with the distinctive coloration and overwintering behavior observed in the Norwegian lemming
KlebPhaCol: a community-driven resource for Klebsiella research identified a novel phage family
Get PDFThe growing threat of multidrug-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae, coupled with its role in gut colonisation, has intensified the search for new treatments, including bacteriophage therapy. Despite increasing documentation of Klebsiella-targeting phages, clinical applications remain limited, with key phage–bacteria interactions still poorly understood. A major obstacle is fragmented access to well-characterised phage–bacteria pairings, restricting the collective advancement of therapeutic and mechanistic insights. To address this gap, we created the Klebsiella Phage Collection (KlebPhaCol), an open resource comprising 52 phages and 74 Klebsiella isolates, characterised at phenotypic and genomic levels. These phages span six families—including a novel family, Felixviridae, associated with the human gut—and target 20 sequence types (including ST258, ST11, and ST14) and 19 capsular-locus types (including KL1 and KL2), across 6 Klebsiella species. Freely accessible at www.klebphacol.org, KlebPhaCol invites the scientific community to both use and contribute to this resource, fostering collaborative research and a deeper understanding of Klebsiella-phage interactions beyond therapeutic use
Impact of Community-Based Food Interventions on Health, Well-being, and Social Connectedness of Older Adults: A Scoping Review
Get PDFThis scoping review examines the impact of community-based food interventions on older adults’ health, well-being, and social connectedness. As the global population ages, these interventions offer promising solutions to address health challenges older adults face, such as malnutrition, social isolation, and chronic diseases. This review finds that community-based food interventions effectively improve older adults’ dietary quality, physical health, and mental well-being, with more significant benefits observed when these interventions promote social bonding and foster a sense of community. Key factors contributing to success include combining multiple intervention components, such as nutritional education and physical activity. Offering culturally relevant food; incorporating interactive and sensory activities; embedding staff within interventions; including the involvement of experts; and clear goal-setting methods, such as SMART goals, are also crucial in driving behavior change and influencing the success of interventions. These elements foster a more personalized and holistic approach to health promotion. However, barriers such as limited time for social interaction, inadequate content delivery, challenges in accessibility and affordability, and limited food variety were identified. The insights from our review are significant for stakeholders integrating community-based food interventions into local healthcare systems, ultimately supporting healthy aging, improving the quality of life of community-based older adults, and reducing the burden on healthcare services, with economic benefits