Search Results (324)

Background: Primary Biliary Cholangitis (PBC) requires early diagnosis and specialized management to prevent progression to cirrhosis. This study evaluates the awareness levels of Turkish physicians from various specialties regarding the clinical features, diagnostic criteria, and current treatment protocols of PBC. Methods: A multi-regional cross-sectional survey was conducted with 269 physicians across Türkiye. Knowledge levels were assessed through a 28-item instrument covering epidemiology, diagnosis and therapy. Data distribution was non-normal (Skewness: −1.296, Kurtosis: 2.857), necessitating the use of the Kruskal–Wallis H test and Dunn–Bonferroni post hoc procedure for inter-group comparisons. Internal consistency was confirmed with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.80. Results: The overall mean awareness score was 62.6%. Item-level analysis revealed a near-universal understanding of the non-mandatory role of liver biopsy in diagnosis (99.1%) yet identified a critical knowledge gap regarding second-line therapies, particularly the use of steroids (6.8%). Significant disparities were observed among specialties (p < 0.001). Gastroenterologists (Median: 91.07%) and gastroenterology fellows (Median: 85.71%) exhibited significantly higher proficiency compared to general practitioners (64.29%) and family medicine residents (67.86%). Internal medicine specialists outperformed primary care providers, while no significant differences were found among other subgroups after Bonferroni adjustment. Conclusions: Professional specialization is the primary determinant of PBC awareness. While core diagnostic knowledge is stable, significant gaps exist in pharmacological management among non-specialists. Targeted medical education for primary care physicians is essential to ensure timely referral and optimize patient outcomes. Full article

Background/Objectives: Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a major global health threat that reduces antibiotic effectiveness and increases healthcare burdens. Countries in the Asia–Pacific region face a particularly high AMR burden, necessitating international collaboration, education, and practical training to combat this growing crisis. This study describes the design, implementation, and educational outcomes of the Infection Diagnosis Workshop, a short-term international program primarily targeting undergraduate medical sciences students that integrates AMR-focused hands-on clinical microbiology training and lectures, alongside cross-cultural collaboration and scientific English communication. Methods: The Infection Diagnosis Workshop was implemented as a four-day program combining lectures with hands-on laboratory activities. Training emphasizes the detection and analysis of antibiotic-resistant bacteria through environmental sampling, bacterial culturing, phenotypic and genotypic resistance detection, and species identification, core components that have remained consistent since the workshop’s establishment. Students also attended lectures on AMR science, global impact, and management strategies. Group discussions and collaborative tasks encouraged interdisciplinary learning. A thematic analysis of student feedback essays from previous workshop cohorts was conducted to identify key concepts, learning outcomes, and shared experiences. All participants provided informed consent for the use of their written feedback. Results: Thematic analysis revealed key learning outcomes categorized into three themes: (1) Knowledge, Awareness, and Technical Skills; (2) Cultural Understanding and Cross-Cultural Collaboration; and (3) English Language and Communication Skills. Students reported increased AMR knowledge, improved laboratory proficiency, enhanced cultural adaptability, and greater confidence in English communication. They also expressed a deeper appreciation for interdisciplinary and international approaches to AMR. Conclusions: The Infection Diagnosis Workshop effectively integrated practical laboratory training with international and cross-cultural engagement. The program strengthened student competencies and contributed to building global partnerships essential for combating AMR. Full article

Action quality assessment automates the evaluation of human movement proficiency, which is vital for applications like sports training and rehabilitation, where objective feedback enhances patient outcomes. Action quality assessment processes motion capture data to generate quality scores for action execution. In rehabilitation exercises, joints typically work synergistically in functional groups. However, existing methods struggle to accurately model the collaborative relationships between joints. Fixed joint grouping is not flexible enough, while fully adaptive grouping lacks the guidance of prior knowledge. In this paper, based on rehabilitation theory in clinical medicine, we propose a dynamic, motion-aware grouping strategy. A two-stream architecture independently processes joint position and orientation information. Fused features are adaptively clustered into 6 functional groups by a joint motion energy-driven learnable mask generator, and intra-group temporal modeling and inter-group spatial projection are achieved through two-stage attention interaction. Our method achieves competitive results and obtains the best scores on most exercises of KIMORE, while remaining comparable on UI-PRMD. Experimental results using the KIMORE dataset show that the model outperforms current methods by reducing the mean absolute deviation by 26.5%. Ablation studies validate the necessity of dynamic grouping and the two-stream design. The core design principles of this study can be extended to fine-grained action-understanding tasks such as surgical operation assessment and motor skill quantification. Full article

Conventional educational assessments enforce a rigid and symmetrical framework of identical question sequences upon a learner population inherently defined by asymmetry in cognitive capabilities and knowledge profiles. This mismatch results in inefficient measurement, where the uniform distribution of difficulty fails to mirror the heterogeneous nature of student learning. We address these topological and informational asymmetries through HARLA-ED, a hybrid framework combining deep knowledge modeling with intelligent question selection. The system integrates hierarchical cognitive graph networks to map the structural symmetries of concept dependencies while tracking evolving knowledge states across multiple time scales. By capturing both immediate working-memory constraints and long-term retention patterns, the model resolves the temporal asymmetry between learning and forgetting rates. A hierarchical reinforcement learning agent then orchestrates an assessment strategy through three decision levels: high-level planning determines diagnostic objectives, mid-level control sequences question types, and low-level actions select specific items. Crucially, the agent employs information-theoretic reward functions designed to restore distributional symmetry in assessment outcomes, ensuring demographic parity and minimizing algorithmic bias. Empirical results demonstrate a 47.5% average reduction in assessment duration compared to standard computer-adaptive tests while preserving measurement accuracy. The system successfully adapts to varying proficiency levels, effectively bridging the information asymmetry between the testing system and the learner’s true latent state. Full article

Citizen science approaches for monitoring, and even restoring, coral reefs have grown in popularity though tend to be restricted to those who have taken courses that expose them to the relevant methodologies. Now that cheap (~10 USD), waterproof pouches for smart phones are widely available, there is the potential for mass acquisition of coral reef images by non-scientists. Furthermore, with the emergence of better machine-learning-based image classification approaches, high-quality data can be extracted from low-resolution images (provided that key benthic organisms, namely corals, other invertebrates, & algae, can be distinguished). To determine whether informally captured images could yield comparable ecological data to point-intercept + photo-quadrat surveys conducted by highly proficient research divers, we trained an artificial intelligence (AI), CoralNet, with images taken before and during a bleaching event in 2015 in Chagos (Indian Ocean). The overall percent coral covers of the formal, “gold standard” method and the informal, “tourist diver” approach of 38.7 and 35.1%, respectively, were within ~10% of one another; coral bleaching percentages of 30.5 and 31.8%, respectively, were statistically comparable. Although the AI was prone to classifying bleached corals as healthy in ~one-third of cases, the fact that these data could be collected by someone with no knowledge of coral reef ecology might justify this approach in areas where divers or snorkelers have access to waterproof cameras and are keen to document coral reef condition. Full article

English-Medium Instruction (EMI) has become a central component of globalized education, allowing institutions to deliver courses in English to improve international competitiveness and accessibility for teachers and students. This paper reports the perspectives of five faculty members from a northern Taiwan private university who participated in an overseas short-term teacher training program at a Southern California State University, the United States, in 2025, aimed at enhancing their professional knowledge and teaching strategies in EMI. A qualitative research approach was adopted, including using the five semi-structured written open-ended questions and a focus group interview. This study captures insights of teachers into the professional development, instructional challenges, subject knowledge, language awareness, pedagogical shifts experienced, and self-reflection by these faculty members. Findings highlight the perceived impact of the professional development training on teachers’ language proficiency, pedagogical teaching skills in EMI, language awareness, intercultural communication competence, and the broader implications for EMI in Taiwanese higher education. Full article

The MTAP (methylthioadenosine phosphorylase) gene, located on chromosome 9p21, plays a crucial role in the methionine salvage pathway and is frequently co-deleted with CDKN2A in various malignancies. Loss of MTAP expression leads to the accumulation of methylthioadenosine (MTA), which selectively inhibits protein arginine methyltransferase 5 (PRMT5) and creates a unique metabolic vulnerability in MTAP-deficient tumors. These alterations have emerged as promising therapeutic targets in precision oncology. Recent advances highlight the potential of exploiting MTAP loss through synthetic lethality approaches using PRMT5 and methionine adenosyltransferase 2A (MAT2A) inhibitors. Preclinical and early clinical data indicate that targeting these pathways can selectively impair tumor growth while sparing MTAP-proficient cells. Moreover, MTAP deletion has been associated with specific molecular and immunologic profiles that may influence treatment response and tumor microenvironment characteristics. This review summarizes current knowledge on the biological functions of MTAP, the mechanisms linking its loss to oncogenesis, and the evolving landscape of therapeutic strategies targeting MTAP-deficient cancers. Understanding these molecular dependencies offers novel opportunities for the development of precision-based therapies across diverse tumor types. Full article

Background: Nurses need strong English language skills to access knowledge and promote evidence-based practice. Podcast production is a promising pedagogical strategy to improve language skills. However, the effects of podcast production on nursing students’ perceived English reading proficiency and the most effective production instructional approaches remain unreported. Aim: To examine the impacts of podcast production on undergraduate nursing students’ perceptions of English reading skills and compare the effectiveness of two podcast production teaching methods. Design: A quasi-experimental study. Methods: 78 third-year nursing students in Northern Thailand were divided into an experimental group (n = 39) and a control group (n = 39). The experimental group received specific guidelines for podcast production, while the control group used a non-guided method. Outcomes included students’ perceptions of their English reading skills and the experimental group’s attitudes toward podcast production guidelines. Results: Pre-test scores for perceived English reading skills were similar between groups (t = −1.029, p = 0.307). ANCOVA revealed that after controlling for pre-test scores, the control group reported significantly higher adjusted post-test scores than the experimental group (F = 5.001, p = 0.028). Students in the experimental group expressed positive attitudes toward the podcast production guidelines. Conclusions: Both podcast production approaches were effective; however, the less-guided approach showed greater improvement in students’ perceptions of their English reading skills. This approach may encourage student autonomy, creativity and deeper engagement. Podcast production emerges as a valuable student-centred learning strategy to improve perceptions of language skills, but finding a balance between support and independence during instruction seems important to maximise its potential benefits. Full article

The relation between motor skills and reading performance among young children has been explored in existing studies, but few of them focused on gross motor skills, and these demonstrated inconsistent findings. The current study aimed to examine the relationship between gross motor proficiency and reading abilities among Chinese primary school students (N = 107, mean age = 8.70 years). Participants completed measures of a non-verbal intelligence test, a gross motor proficiency test, and reading ability tests that assess their Chinese phonological awareness, Chinese morphological awareness, vocabulary knowledge, and reading comprehension. The results of correlational and regression analyses revealed a weak association between gross motor level and each component of reading achievement. Meanwhile, the correlation between gross motor proficiency and morphological awareness, as well as between gross motor proficiency and reading comprehension, did not reach statistical significance. In conclusion, the present study justified the negligible predictive power of gross motor proficiency on reading abilities among Chinese young students. Full article

Background and Aim: Oman’s rapid industrial development has resulted in changing occupational exposures, emphasizing the importance of enhancing physicians’ proficiency in occupational history-taking and disease identification. This study sought to evaluate physicians’ knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) in diagnosing occupational diseases and collecting occupational histories, while also identifying perceived barriers to effective recognition and reporting. Method: Data were collected utilizing a structured, self-administered questionnaire adapted from a validated instrument that assesses physicians’ knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) concerning occupational diseases. The survey was conducted among internal medicine and family medicine physicians at a tertiary academic hospital. Result: Of 252 eligible physicians, 146 (57.9%) responded. Moderate levels were most common for knowledge (45.2%) and attitude (65.1%), while practice was most frequently high (45.9%). Prior training strongly predicted high knowledge (aOR = 7.23, 95% CI: 2.99–17.49; p < 0.001). Family Medicine physicians were more likely to achieve high knowledge (aOR = 2.42, 95% CI: 1.03–5.72; p = 0.043) but less likely to report high attitude scores (aOR = 0.32, 95% CI: 0.14–0.76; p = 0.010). Training also showed non-significant trends toward improved attitude and practice. Conclusions: Occupational health training is strongly linked to improved knowledge, with indications of benefits for attitude and practice. Specialty differences highlight the need to integrate occupational medicine into curricula and strengthen institutional support to enhance recognition of occupational diseases. Full article

Traditional approaches to welder training demand substantial investments in equipment, consumable materials, and workshop facilities, while also exposing novice learners to considerable safety risks. This study investigates the effectiveness of a virtual reality (VR)-based welding training system developed with Unity for the Meta Quest 2 platform, designed to deliver safe and immersive instruction in fundamental welding techniques. A total of twenty participants with no prior welding experience completed structured VR training sessions over two weeks. The program focused on developing competencies in welding machine operation (including start-up procedures and parameter adjustments), controlling shielding gas flow, and accurately regulating torch-to-workpiece distance, torch angle, and travel speed. Real-time feedback was integrated into the system to support accurate control and positioning of the welding torch. Quantitative assessments demonstrated significant improvements in both technical proficiency and trainee confidence and anxiety levels. Knowledge test scores increased from 45.3 to 85.1, while machine adjustment accuracy rose from 28.7 to 92.3. In parallel, participant confidence levels increased substantially, and anxiety scores decreased from 4.0–4.5 to 1.1–1.5 on standardized scales. These findings provide experimental evidence that VR-based training can enhance fundamental welding education by offering a safe, repeatable, and effective practice environment that simultaneously improves technical performance, strengthens learner confidence, and reduces training-related anxiety. Full article

Civil engineers play a central role in climate change adaptation, as they are responsible for designing and managing infrastructure that supports societal resilience. However, professional education has not kept pace with the growing demand for sustainability competencies. This paper proposes a pedagogical model for capacity building that equips engineers with the skills needed to integrate climate adaptation into their daily practice. Semi-structured interviews with stakeholders across Canada identified four pedagogical pillars of effective training: appreciation of climate risks, reflective practice, project-based learning, and design thinking. These were synthesized into the Model for Climate Change Adaptation through Appreciation and Engagement, which emphasizes both technical proficiency and transversal competencies such as collaboration, critical reflection, and ethical responsibility. By grounding climate knowledge in authentic, workplace-based contexts, the model bridges sustainability learning and engineering practice through a scalable training framework. It supports the advancement of Quality Education (SDG 4), Sustainable Cities and Communities (SDG 11) and Climate Action (SDG 13), while offering practical guidance to universities, professional associations, and policymakers seeking to accelerate climate adaptation in engineering education. Full article

Background/Objectives: Digital interventions are essential for dementia care, particularly for older and isolated populations, and provide valuable support for caregivers. This umbrella review aimed to evaluate the acceptability and barriers to implementing the use of digital tools for health monitoring and management in older people with dementia and/or their caregivers. Methods: The review included studies assessing acceptability factors and barriers related to technology use in these groups. A total of 612 studies were identified across three databases. After removing duplicates, 400 articles remained. Following title and abstract screening, thirty articles were selected for full-text evaluation and five met the eligibility criteria for inclusion in this review. These systematic reviews collectively covered 93 primary studies, encompassing 12 to 279 participants with dementia and 11 to 2761 caregivers. Results: Frequently reported factors included self-management support, information access, and enhanced communication, although these were not consistently addressed across all reviews. The most significant barrier was a lack of technical knowledge, which hindered effective use. This gap in knowledge could compromise self-management and potentially increase burden on caregivers. Conclusions: In conclusion, digital interventions offer significant benefits in addressing accessibility challenges and are generally well-received by people with dementia, their caregivers, and healthcare providers. However, addressing the lack of technological proficiency is crucial to ensuring these interventions are effective and do not inadvertently create additional challenges. Practical strategies should include tailored digital literacy training for older adults and caregivers, simplified user interfaces, and ongoing technical support to enhance engagement and long-term adherence. Full article

The rapid advancement of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has significantly impacted educational and professional practices, presenting both opportunities and challenges. This study explores the integration of GenAI into a systems engineering seminar, aiming to develop essential GenAI skills and enhance disciplinary knowledge. Two hypotheses guide this research: (H1) engaging with GenAI in research and design activities improves student proficiency in using GenAI, and (H2) engaging with GenAI in design activities related to advanced disciplinary knowledge improves their understanding and use. The study employs a case study approach combined with a survey, involving 26 graduate students in a systems engineering seminar. Students were encouraged to use GenAI tools for all tasks, including literature reviews, presentations, and a drone design challenge. Data was collected through recorded presentations and student interactions with GenAI tools. Data analysis involved systematic coding and thematic analysis of presentations, student–GenAI interactions, and survey responses, with triangulation across multiple data sources to ensure validity. The findings indicate that the students effectively learned about GenAI tools, demonstrated gradual improvements in using tools, criticized and selected among them, and even built a new GenAI tool. They demonstrated improved critical thinking and creativity, as evidenced by their ability to critically assess GenAI outputs and apply them to practical challenges like the drone design task. One student developed a custom GenAI tool by training ChatGPT-4o for specialized modeling tasks. The integration of GenAI in educational settings through self-directed learning, peer presentations, and design challenges appears to enhance learning experiences by fostering critical thinking and creativity. The evidence suggests that GenAI tools, when used with appropriate validation and critical assessment, may serve as valuable aids in developing engineering skills and addressing complex problems. Best practices in teaching about GenAI are provided. Full article

Architecture students have a limited understanding of technology’s pedagogical benefits, which creates a gap between the potential of technology-enhanced learning and its actual implementation. A promising solution to this underlying problem would be the integration of GAI in architecture education. The purpose of this study is to explore the role of GAI in architecture education from students’ perspectives. A self-developed questionnaire was employed to collect data from 239 architecture students from three universities in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Frequency distribution and structural equation modeling (SEM) were employed for data analysis. The study found a low level of awareness and moderate level of perception toward GAI. Integrating GAI into architecture education through knowledge and ethical awareness enhances students’ general skills competency and architecture and design expertise. Students who perceive GAI as beneficial enhance their general skills competency, while those who perceive GAI as challenging undermine their architecture and design expertise. The study also reported that students who intend to integrate GAI in architecture education have high ethical awareness toward GAI and possess a positive perception about GAI while inclining toward its benefits. Students should gain a better understanding of GAI tools and the ways to use them in architecture education in order to improve their general and field-specific skills proficiency. Educators must work with students to enhance their knowledge about GAI and the perception of its benefits and challenges, so that a focused skills development can transform students’ basic competencies to advanced architecture and design expertise. Full article