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Insomnia symptoms are frequent during peripartum and are considered risk factors for peripartum psychopathology. Assessing and treating insomnia and related conditions of sleep loss during peripartum should be a priority in the clinical practice. The aim of this paper was to conduct a systematic review on insomnia evaluation and treatment during peripartum which may be useful for clinicians. The literature review was carried out between January 2000 and May 2021 on the evaluation and treatment of insomnia during the peripartum period. The PubMed, PsycINFO, and Embase electronic databases were searched for literature published according to the PRISMA guidance with several combinations of search terms "insomnia" and "perinatal period" or "pregnancy" or "post partum" or "lactation" or "breastfeeding" and "evaluation" and "treatment." Based on this search, 136 articles about insomnia evaluation and 335 articles on insomnia treatment were found and we conducted at the end a narrative review. According to the inclusion/exclusion criteria, 41 articles were selected for the evaluation part and 22 on the treatment part, including the most recent meta-analyses and systematic reviews. Evaluation of insomnia during peripartum, as for insomnia patients, may be conducted at least throughout a clinical interview, but specific rating scales are available and may be useful for assessment. Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), as for insomnia patients, should be the preferred treatment choice during peripartum, and it may be useful to also improve mood, anxiety symptoms, and fatigue. Pharmacological treatment may be considered when women who present with severe forms of insomnia symptoms do not respond to nonpharmacologic therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Patient-reported outcome (PRO) measures originally developed for paper administration are increasingly being administered electronically in clinical trials and other health research studies. Three published meta-analyses of measurement equivalence among paper and electronic modes aggregated findings across hundreds of PROs, but there has not been a similar meta-analysis that addresses a single PRO, partly because there are not enough published measurement equivalence studies using the same PRO. Because the SF-36(R) Health Survey (SF-36) is a widely used PRO, the aim of this study was to conduct a meta-analysis of measurement equivalence studies of this survey.Methods: A literature search of several medical databases used search terms for variations of "SF-36" or "SF-12" and "equivalence" in the title or abstract of English language publications. The eight scale scores and two summary measures of the SF-36 and SF-12 were transformed to norm-based scores (NBS) using developer guidelines. A threshold of within ± 2 NBS points was set as the margin of equivalence. Comprehensive meta-analysis software was used.Results: Twenty-five studies were included in the meta-analysis. Results indicated that mean differences across domains and summary scores ranged from 0.01 to 0.39 while estimates of agreement ranged from 0.76 to 0.91, all well within the equivalence threshold. Moderator analyses showed that time between administration, survey language, and type of electronic device did not influence equivalence.Conclusions: The results of the meta-analysis support equivalence of paper-based and electronic versions of the SF-36 and SF-12 across a variety of disease populations, countries, and electronic modes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The study tests the effects of data collection modes on patient responses associated with the multi-item measures such as Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement System (PROMIS®), and single-item measures such as Patient-Reported Outcomes version of the Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (PRO-CTCAE), and Numerical Rating Scale (NRS) measures. Methods: Adult cancer patients were recruited from five cancer centers and administered measures of anxiety, depression, fatigue, sleep disturbance, pain intensity, pain interference, ability to participate in social roles and activities, global mental and physical health, and physical function. Patients were randomized to complete the measures on paper (595), interactive voice response (IVR, 596) system, or tablet computer (589). We evaluated differential item functioning (DIF) by method of data collection using the R software package, lordif. For constructs that showed no DIF, we concluded equivalence across modes if the equivalence margin, defined as ± 0.20 × pooled SD, completely surrounds 95% confidence intervals (CI's) for difference in mean score. If the 95% CI fell totally outside the equivalence margin, we concluded systematic score difference by modes. If the 95% CI partly overlaps the equivalence margin, we concluded neither equivalence nor difference. Results: For all constructs, no DIF of any kind was found for the three modes. The scores on paper and tablet were more comparable than between IVR and other modes but none of the 95% CI's were completely outside the equivalence margins, in which we established neither equivalence nor difference. Percentages of missing values were comparable for paper and tablet modes. Percentages of missing values were higher for IVR (2.3% to 6.5% depending on measures) compared to paper and tablet modes (0.7% to 3.3% depending on measures and modes), which was attributed to random technical difficulties experienced in some centers. Conclusion: Across all mode comparisons, there were some measures with CI's not completely contained within the margin of small effect. Two visual modes agreed more than visual-auditory pairs. IVR may induce differences in scores unrelated to constructs being measured in comparison with paper and tablet. The users of the surveys should consider using IVR only when paper and computer administration is not feasible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing higher-order critical thinking skills as one of the central objectives of education has been recently facilitated via software packages. Whereas one such technology as computer-aided argument mapping is reported to enhance levels of critical thinking (van Gelder ), its application as a pedagogical tool in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) settings has been rarely explored. In addition, the literature fails to acknowledge whether having the basic skill of representing an argument diagrammatically even with paper and pencil can lead to similar results. That being the case, this study was conducted with the aim of comparing the impact of teaching argument mapping via Rationale software versus paper and pencil on Iranian EFL majors' critical thinking skills development. To this end, 180 EFL participants were screened into low and high levels of reading proficiency based on their scores on a sample reading proficiency test. Next, they were randomly assigned to two experimental and one comparison groups. During 12 sessions, the experimental groups were provided with argument mapping instructions while the comparison group received a conventional reading instruction. All participants were pre- and post-tested with the California critical thinking skills test (CCTST). Results suggested that students in the software group significantly outperformed those in the paper and pencil group on overall CCTST and the sub-skills of inference and inductive reasoning. They also scored significantly higher on all tests compared to the comparison group. However, participants' level of proficiency as well as sex did not show any significant effect on their performance on overall CCTST and its sub-skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background The Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) is a cornerstone in healthcare assessment. As a potential tool for providing learner-centred feedback on a large scale, the use of tablet devices has been proposed for the recording of OSCE marks, moving away from the traditional, paper-based checklist. Methods Examiner-recorded comments were collated from successive first year formative and summative OSCE examinations, with paper-based checklists used in 2012 and iPad-based checklists used in 2013. A total of 558 and 498 examiner-candidate interactions took place in the January OSCE examinations, and 1402 and 1344 for the May OSCE examination for 2012 and 2013 respectively. Examiner comments were analyzed for quantity and quality. A tool was developed and validated to assess the quality of the comments left by examiners for use as feedback (Kappa = 0.625). Results A direct comparison of paper-based checklists and iPad-recorded examinations showed an increase in the quantity of comments left from 41 to 51 % (+ 10 %). Furthermore, there was an increase in the number of comments left for students deemed 'borderline': + 22 %. In terms of the quality of the comments for feedback, there was a significant improvement (p < 0.001) between comments left in written-recorded and iPad-recorded examinations. Conclusions iPad-marked examinations resulted in a greater quantity and quality of examiner comment for use as feedback, particularly for students performing less well, enabling tutors to direct further learning for these students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To give an overview of the multicenter Prostate Cancer Outcomes (PCO) study, involving paper-based and web-based collection of patient-reported outcome measures (PROM) in patients undergoing local treatment for prostate cancer in certified centers in Germany. The PCO study is part of the larger Movember-funded TrueNTH Global Registry. The article reports on the study's design and provides a brief progress report after the first 2 years of data collection. Methods: Prostate cancer centers (PCCs) certified according to German Cancer Society requirements were invited to participate in collecting patient-reported information on symptoms and function before and at least once (at 12 months) after treatment. The data were matched with disease and treatment information. This report describes progress in patient inclusion, response rate, and variations between centers relative to online/paper use, and also data quality, including recruitment variations relative to treatment in the first participating PCCs. Results: PCC participation increased over time; 44 centers had transferred data for 3094 patients at the time of this report. Patient recruitment varied widely across centers. Recruitment was highest among patients undergoing radical prostatectomy. The completeness of the data was good, except for comorbidity information. Conclusions: The PCO study benefits from a quality improvement system first established over 10 years ago, requiring collection and harmonization of a predefined clinical dataset across centers. Nevertheless, establishing a PROM routine requires substantial effort on the part of providers and constant monitoring in order to achieve high-quality data. The findings reported here may be useful for guiding implementation in similar initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Individuals may experience a range of symptoms after the clearance of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. This condition is termed long COVID (LC) or Post-COVID-19 condition (PCC). Despite the appreciable number of symptoms documented to date, one key challenge remains in the robust characterization of LC outcomes. This review aimed to assess the properties, identify gaps, and provide recommendations for relevant descriptive and evaluative Patient-Reported Outcome Measurement (PROM) instruments that can be used to comprehensively characterize LC. Methods: To achieve this objective, we identified and reviewed descriptive and evaluative PROM instruments that have been developed and validated to date with people living with LC. Our review assessed their properties, identified gaps, and recommended PROMs suitable for characterizing LC. To ensure a comprehensive and robust characterization of LC, we next identified, reviewed, and selected (with the input of patient partners) PROMs associated with the most frequently reported LC symptoms. The evaluation criteria included psychometric evidence, mode of delivery, cost, and administration time. Results: Traditional matrix mapping revealed Post-COVID Functional Status Scale (PCFS) as a choice instrument for capturing LC outcomes largely because of the comprehensive domains it covered, and the number of psychometric evidence reported in literatures. This instrument can be effectively paired with the Fatigue Severity Scale (FSS), Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), Headache Impact Test (HIT), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), and DePaul Symptom Questionnaire (DSQ-PEM) to characterize fatigue, cognitive impairment, depression/anxiety, headache, sleeplessness, and post-exertional malaise respectively. Conclusion: Our paper identified appropriate PROM instruments that can effectively capture the diverse impacts of LC. By utilizing these validated instruments, we can better understand and manage LC. Plain language summary: Some individuals who once contracted the virus responsible for COVID-19 may continue to experience a range of symptoms persisting for more than 3 months. These symptoms include fatigue, difficulty sleeping, anxiety and difficulty breathing amongst others. This condition is known by many as Long COVID (LC). To understand the health outcomes of patients faced with this condition, standardized Patient Reported Outcome Measurement instruments (PROMs) are pivotal. PROMs are standardized questionnaires completed by patients to measure their symptoms, perceptions of health status, and/or functional well-being. In this paper, we have examined standardized instruments suitable for measuring LC outcomes. We conducted a comprehensive strength and weakness analysis of each instrument reviewed, guided by specific criteria. Based on our strength and weakness analyses, we identified several potential instruments that can be used to reports patients' outcomes concerning LC. The data collected from PROMs provides valuable insights for healthcare practitioners and policy makers, enabling the enhancement of patient-centric care and serving as an instrument for systemic transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recommender systems have become one of the main tools for personalized content filtering in the educational domain. Those who support teaching and learning activities, particularly, have gained increasing attention in the past years. This growing interest has motivated the emergence of new approaches and models in the field, in spite of it, there is a gap in literature about the current trends on how recommendations have been produced, how recommenders have been evaluated as well as what are the research limitations and opportunities for advancement in the field. In this regard, this paper reports the main findings of a systematic literature review covering these four dimensions. The study is based on the analysis of a set of primary studies (N = 16 out of 756, published from 2015 to 2020) included according to defined criteria. Results indicate that the hybrid approach has been the leading strategy for recommendation production. Concerning the purpose of the evaluation, the recommenders were evaluated mainly regarding the quality of accuracy and a reduced number of studies were found that investigated their pedagogical effectiveness. This evidence points to a potential research opportunity for the development of multidimensional evaluation frameworks that effectively support the verification of the impact of recommendations on the teaching and learning process. Also, we identify and discuss main limitations to clarify current difficulties that demand attention for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital technologies in, on, and around bicycles and cyclists are gaining ground. Collectively called Smart Cycling Technologies (SCTs), it is important to evaluate their impact on subjective cycling experiences. Future evaluations can inform the design of SCTs, which in turn can help to realize the abundant benefits of cycling. Wearable body sensors and advanced driver assistance systems are increasingly studied in other domains, however evaluation methods integrating such sensors and systems in the field of cycling research were under-reviewed and under-conceptualized. This paper therefore presents a systematic literature review and conceptual framework to support the use of body sensors in evaluations of the impact of SCTs on perceptions, emotions, feelings, affect, and more, during outdoor bicycle rides. The literature review (n = 40) showed that there is scarce research on this specific use of body sensors. Moreover, existing research designs are typically not tailored to determine impact of SCTs on cycling experience at large scale. Most studies had small sample sizes and explored limited sensors in chest belts and wristbands for evaluating stress response. The evaluation framework helps to overcome these limitations, by synthesizing crucial factors and methods for future evaluations in four categories: (1) experiences with SCTs, (2) experience measurements, (3) causal analysis, (4) confounding variables. The framework also identifies which types of sensors fit well to which types of experiences and SCTs. The seven directions for future research include, for example, experiences of psychological flow, sensors in e-textiles, and cycling with biofeedback. Future interactions between cyclists and SCTs will likely resemble a collaboration between humans and artificial intelligence. Altogether, this paper helps to understand if future support systems for cyclists truly make cycling safer and more attractive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An evaluation exercise was performed involving 313 papers of research staff (66 persons) of the Deutsche Rheuma-Forschungszentrum (DRFZ) published in 2004-2008. The records and citations to them were retrieved from the Web of Science (Thomson Reuters) in March 2010. The authors compared productivity and citedness of 'group leaders' vs. 'regular scientists', of 'male scientists' vs. 'female scientists' using citation-based indexes. It was found that 'group leaders' are more prolific and cited more often than 'regular scientists', the same is true considering 'male' vs. 'female scientists'. The greatest contrast is observed between 'female leaders' and 'female regular scientists'. The above mentioned differences are significant in indexes related to the number of papers, while values of indexes characterizing the quality of papers (average citation rate per paper and similar indexes) are not substantially different among the groups compared. The mean value of percentile rank index for all the 313 papers is 58.5, which is significantly higher than the global mean value of about 50. This fact is evidence of a higher citation status, on average, of the publications from the DRFZ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a clear tendency for authors of scientific papers to over-cite the papers by their fellow countrymen (and countrywomen) relative to the percentage presence of their papers in world output in the same field. We investigated the Over-Citation Ratio (OCR) as a function of this percentage, and the effects of different scientific fields and publication years. For cancer research, we also compared clinical with basic research. We found that the OCR for a given percentage presence has been decreasing over the period 1980-2010, probably because of better communications. It is greater for fields of relatively more national interest (chemistry, ornithology) and less for those of international concern (astronomy, diabetes, cancer). It may also be slightly greater for basic cancer research than for clinical work. The OCR values given allow other types of citation, such as the references on clinical practice guidelines and papers featured in newspaper stories, to be put in context: are they unusually nationalistic, or typical of normal citation behaviour? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The identity and institutional image of universities are presented to the world through their websites. On their websites, universities publish their academic offerings, their mission, their vision, their academic objectives, their achievements, their regulations, their news and all their university work. Hence, the importance of university websites is accessible. The accessibility of university websites has been evaluated several times in the past, but there is no work that has summarized all the evaluations performed to provide a general overview of the situation. Therefore, in this research we have performed a systematic literature review (SLR) to consolidate, analyze, synthesize and interpret the accessibility results of university websites published in 42 papers that have been selected for this study. The methodology used in this SLR was that proposed in Kitchenham's guidelines, which includes three stages: planning the review, conducting the review and reporting the review. The results present the analysis and synthesis of the evaluations of 9,140 universities in 67 countries. Of these, 38,416 web pages, 91,421 YouTube videos and 28,395 PDF documents were evaluated. Manual methods, methods with automatic tools and the combination of both methods were used for the evaluation. Most websites were evaluated using the ISO/IEC 40500:2012 and Section 508 standards. The accessibility guidelines most commonly violated in the evaluations were: adaptable, compatible, distinguishable, input assistance, keyboard accessible, navigable, predictable, readable and text alternatives. In conclusion, the university websites, YouTube videos and PDF documents analyzed in the 42 papers present important accessibility problems. The main contribution of this SLR is the consolidation of the results of the 42 studies selected to determine the findings and trends in the accessibility of university websites around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Editors play a critical role in the peer review system. How do editorial behaviors affect the performance of peer review? No quantitative model to date allows us to measure the influence of editorial behaviors on different peer review stages such as, manuscript distribution and final decision making. Here, we propose an agent-based model in which the process of peer review is guided mainly by the social interactions among three kinds of agents representing authors, editors and reviewers respectively. We apply this model to analyze a number of editorial behaviors such as decision strategy, number of reviewers and editorial bias on peer review. We find out that peer review outcomes are significantly sensitive to different editorial behaviors. With a small fraction (10 %) of biased editors, the quality of accepted papers declines 11 %, which indicates that effects of editorial biased behavior is worse than that of biased reviewers (7 %). While several peer review models exist, this is the first account for the study of editorial behaviors that is validated on the basis of simulation analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the long-term accumulation of high-quality educational data, artificial intelligence (AI) has shown excellent performance in knowledge tracing (KT). However, due to the lack of interpretability and transparency of some algorithms, this approach will result in reduced stakeholder trust and a decreased acceptance of intelligent decisions. Therefore, algorithms need to achieve high accuracy, and users need to understand the internal operating mechanism and provide reliable explanations for decisions. This paper thoroughly analyzes the interpretability of KT algorithms. First, the concepts and common methods of explainable artificial intelligence (xAI) and knowledge tracing are introduced. Next, explainable knowledge tracing (xKT) models are classified into two categories: transparent models and "black box" models. Then, the interpretable methods used are reviewed from three stages: ante-hoc interpretable methods, post-hoc interpretable methods, and other dimensions. It is worth noting that current evaluation methods for xKT are lacking. Hence, contrast and deletion experiments are conducted to explain the prediction results of the deep knowledge tracing model on the ASSISTment2009 by using three xAI methods. Moreover, this paper offers some insights into evaluation methods from the perspective of educational stakeholders. This paper provides a detailed and comprehensive review of the research on explainable knowledge tracing, aiming to offer some basis and inspiration for researchers interested in the interpretability of knowledge tracing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) chat programs has opened two distinct paths, one enhancing interaction and another potentially replacing personal understanding. Ethical and legal concerns arise due to the rapid development of these programs. This paper investigates academic discussions on AI in medicine, analyzing the context, frequency, and reasons behind these conversations. Methods: The study collected data from the Web of Science database on articles containing the keyword "ChatGPT" published from January to September 2023, resulting in 786 medically related journal articles. The inclusion criteria were peer-reviewed articles in English related to medicine. Results: The United States led in publications (38.1%), followed by India (15.5%) and China (7.0%). Keywords such as "patient" (16.7%), "research" (12%), and "performance" (10.6%) were prevalent. The Cureus Journal of Medical Science (11.8%) had the most publications, followed by the Annals of Biomedical Engineering (8.3%). August 2023 had the highest number of publications (29.3%), with significant growth between February to March and April to May. Medical General Internal (21.0%) was the most common category, followed by Surgery (15.4%) and Radiology (7.9%). Discussion: The prominence of India in ChatGPT research, despite lower research funding, indicates the platform's popularity and highlights the importance of monitoring its use for potential medical misinformation. China's interest in ChatGPT research suggests a focus on Natural Language Processing (NLP) AI applications, despite public bans on the platform. Cureus' success in publishing ChatGPT articles can be attributed to its open-access, rapid publication model. The study identifies research trends in plastic surgery, radiology, and obstetric gynecology, emphasizing the need for ethical considerations and reliability assessments in the application of ChatGPT in medical practice. Conclusion: ChatGPT's presence in medical literature is growing rapidly across various specialties, but concerns related to safety, privacy, and accuracy persist. More research is needed to assess its suitability for patient care and implications for non-medical use. Skepticism and thorough review of research are essential, as current studies may face retraction as more information emerges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on topics including Assessment Reforms, Teacher Shortages and Alternative Certification, Performance-Based Accountability (PBA), Support for School Actors, and other related topics.

Background: The majority of studies that explore changes in musculature following resistance training interventions or examine atrophy due to immobilization or sarcopenia use ultrasound imaging. While most studies assume acceptable to excellent reliability, there seems to be unawareness of the existing absolute measurement errors. As early as 1998, methodological research addressed a collective unawareness of the random measurement error and its practical indications. Referring to available methodological approaches, within this work, we point out the limited value of focusing on relative, correlation-based reliability indices for the interpretability in scientific research but also for clinical application by assessing 1,512 muscle thickness values from more than 400 ultrasound images. To account for intra- and inter-day repeatability, data were collected on two consecutive days within four testing sessions. Commonly-stated reliability values (ICC, CV, SEM and MDC) were calculated, while evidence-based agreement analyses were applied to provide the accompanied systematic and random measurement error. Results: While ICCs in the range of 0.832 to 0.998 are in accordance with the available literature, the mean absolute percentage error ranges from 1.34 to 20.38% and the mean systematic bias from 0.78 to 4.01 mm (all p ≤ 0.013), depending on the measurement time points chosen for data processing. Conclusions: In accordance with prior literature, a more cautious interpretation of relative reliability values should be based on included systematic and random absolute measurement scattering. Lastly, this paper discusses the rationale for including different measurement error statistics when determining the validity of pre-post changes, thus, accounting for the certainty of evidence. Key Points: • While reliability of a testing protocol is most often determined via relative reliability indices such as the intraclass correlation coefficient, further reliability values such as the systematic bias and the random error have been described as valuable for results interpretation. • This study used the most frequently employed procedure to determine muscle hypertrophy (ultrasound) as an example linking relative reliability values to absolute measurement errors under special consideration of appropriate calculation models using three scenarios (best case, worst case, stability). • Overall, 504 ultrasound images were examined showing excellent relative reliability, but the corresponding measurement errors suggest that caution must be exercised when interpreting pre-post settings in cases where the measurement error exceeds the expected changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a library for cross-simulator comparison of reinforcement learning models in traffic signal control tasks. This library is developed to implement recent state-of-the-art reinforcement learning models with extensible interfaces and unified cross-simulator evaluation metrics. It supports commonly-used simulators in traffic signal control tasks, including Simulation of Urban MObility(SUMO) and CityFlow, and multiple benchmark datasets for fair comparisons. We conducted experiments to validate our implementation of the models and to calibrate the simulators so that the experiments from one simulator could be referential to the other. Based on the validated models and calibrated environments, this paper compares and reports the performance of current state-of-the-art RL algorithms across different datasets and simulators. This is the first time that these methods have been compared fairly under the same datasets with different simulators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The multidimensional nature of digital libraries evaluation domain poses several challenges to the research communities that intend to assess criteria, methods, products and tools, and also practice them. The amount of scientific production that is published in the domain hinders and disorientates the interested researchers. These researchers need guidance to exploit effectively the considerable amount of data and the diversity of methods, as well as to identify new research goals and develop their plans for future studies. This paper proposes a methodological pathway to investigate the core topics that structure the digital library evaluation domain and their impact. Further to the exploration of these topical entities, this study investigates also the researchers that contribute substantially to key topics, their communities and their relationships. The proposed methodology exploits topic modeling and network analysis in combination with citation and altmetrics analysis on a corpus consisting of the digital library evaluation papers presented in JCDL, ECDL/TDPL and ICADL conferences in the period 2001–2013. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing computational power and improving deep learning methods have made computer vision technologies pervasively common in urban environments. Their applications in policing, traffic management, and documenting public spaces are increasingly common (Ridgeway 2018, Coifman et al. 1998, Sun et al. 2020). Despite the often-discussed biases in the algorithms' training and unequally borne benefits (Khosla et al. 2012), almost all applications similarly reduce urban experiences to simplistic, reductive, and mechanistic measures. There is a lack of context, depth, and specificity in these practices that enables semantic knowledge or analysis within urban contexts, especially within the context of using and occupying urban space. This paper will critique existing uses of artificial intelligence and computer vision in urban practices to propose a new framework for understanding people, action, and public space. This paper revisits Geertz's (1973) use of thick descriptions in generating interpretive theories of culture and activity and uses this lens to establish a framework to approach evaluating the varied uses of computer vision technologies that weigh meaning. By discussing cases of implemented examples of urban computer vision—from LinkNYC and Numina's urban measurements to the Detroit Police's use of DataWorks Plus's facial recognition technology—it proposes a framework for evaluating the thickness of the algorithm's conclusions against the computational method's complexity required to produce that outcome. Further, we discuss how the framework's positioning may differ (and conflict) between different users of the technology, from engineer to urban planner and policymaker, to citizen. This paper also discusses how the current use and training of deep learning algorithms and how this process limits semantic learning and proposes three potential methodologies toward gaining a more contextually specific, urban-semantic, description of urban space relevant to urbanists. This paper contributes to the critical conversations regarding the proliferation of artificial intelligence by challenging the current applications of these technologies in the urban environment by highlighting their failures within this context while also proposing an evolution of these algorithms that may ultimately make them sensitive and useful within this spatial and cultural milieu. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge discovery and evaluation is a challenging but rewarding process of obtaining available information automatically from database. Due to the heterogeneity of the collected data, the connotative knowledge has the characteristics of uncertainty, random occurrence and variable scale. Therefore, an unsupervised knowledge discovery and variable scale evaluation model is presented in this paper based on a new multi-feature fusion method. Firstly, point at the multiple information features, an amplitude-frequency-shape based state description form is proposed in this paper. It could analyze the time series from the aspects of energy, phase, and knowledge similarity. In view of the variable number and scale of knowledge fragments, a piecewise linear segmentation criterion is put forward based on the complexity and accuracy of information representation. Then a model free knowledge discovery framework without samples labels is constructed to discover the knowledge quickly and effectively. Aimed at the variable knowledge scale, a variable scale evaluation method is first proposed to distinguish the multi-scale decision-making knowledge based on the indicators of system stability and security. It could optimize the knowledge base and guide the decision-making process. The experimental results on heterogeneous activity datasets indicate that the proposed method here could generally analysis the time series state and discover the knowledge efficiently from massive data. In addition, the knowledge discovery and evaluation at a continuous decision system show that the proposed framework could meet the needs of knowledge discovery in complex environment and effectively distinguish the knowledge to provide strong support for establishing a credible decision-making system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Computational modelling can offer valuable insight on mental illness. However, this approach has rarely been adopted to investigate apathy, a condition characterising a variety of psychiatric and neurological syndromes. This paper proposes a computational model of apathy and tests key model predictions in the healthy adult population. Building upon recent reference-dependent theories of evaluation, the model interprets apathy as arising from an excessive uncertainty about the distribution of incentives in the environment. This predicts that high-apathy individuals appraise the value of stimuli as less extreme and as more similar to one another. These predictions were assessed in two online studies where healthy adults rated the value of pictures characterised by varying levels of emotional salience. In line with the model, we observed that high-apathy individuals perceive negative stimuli as less negative, positive stimuli as less positive, and discriminate less among stimuli characterised by different salience. The contribution of this paper is twofold. On a more specific level, it sheds light on the precise mechanisms underlying evaluation processes in apathy. On a more general level, it highlights the insight offered by models of reference-dependent evaluation for understanding psychopathology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conversational recommender systems aim to interactively support online users in their information search and decision-making processes in an intuitive way. With the latest advances in voice-controlled devices, natural language processing, and AI in general, such systems received increased attention in recent years. Technically, conversational recommenders are usually complex multi-component applications and often consist of multiple machine learning models and a natural language user interface. Evaluating such a complex system in a holistic way can therefore be challenging, as it requires (i) the assessment of the quality of the different learning components, and (ii) the quality perception of the system as a whole by users. Thus, a mixed methods approach is often required, which may combine objective (computational) and subjective (perception-oriented) evaluation techniques. In this paper, we review common evaluation approaches for conversational recommender systems, identify possible limitations, and outline future directions towards more holistic evaluation practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use the results from the very recent paper (Popa in Constr Approx, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00365-022-09584-3) to prove the complete asymptotic evaluation for general modified Mellin–Gauss–Weierstrass convolution operators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Laboratory parameters and the associated clinical outcomes have been an area of focus in COVID-19 research globally. Purpose: We performed a scoping review to synthesize laboratory values described in the literature and their associations with mortality and disease severity. Methods: We identified all primary studies involving laboratory values with clinical outcomes as a primary endpoint by performing data searches in various systematic review databases until 10th August, 2020. Two reviewers independently reviewed all abstracts (13,568 articles) and full text (1126 articles) data. A total of 529 studies involving 165,020 patients from 28 different countries were included. Investigation of the number of studies and patients from a geographical perspective showed that the majority of published literature from January–March 2020 to April–June 2020 was from Asia, though there was a temporal shift in published studies to Europe and the Americas. For each laboratory value, the proportion of studies that noted a statistically significant (p < 0.05) correlation with adverse clinical outcomes (e.g., mortality, disease severity) was tabulated. Results and conclusion: Among frequently reported laboratory values, blood urea nitrogen was the most often reported predictor of mortality (91%); neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio was the most frequent statistically significant laboratory parameter in predicting disease severity (96%). This review highlights the temporal progression of laboratory value frequencies, as well as potentially distinct utilities of different markers for clinical outcomes of COVID-19. Future research pathways include using this collected data for focused quantitative meta-analyses of particular laboratory values correlated with clinical outcomes of mortality and disease severity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Cognitive impairment associated with schizophrenia (CIAS) represents a distinct, persistent, and core group of schizophrenia symptoms. Cognitive symptoms have been shown to have an impact on quality of life. There are several published CIAS measures, but none based on direct patient self-report. It is important to capture the patient's perspective to supplement performancebased outcome measures of cognition to provide a complete picture of the patient's experience. This paper describes additional validation work on the Patient-Reported Experience of Cognitive Impairment in Schizophrenia (PRECIS) instrument. Methods: Data from two large, international, pharmaceutical clinical trials in medically and psychiatrically stable English-speaking patients with schizophrenia and 88 healthy controls were analyzed. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted in one trial (n = 215), using the original 35-item PRECIS. The factor structure suggested by EFA was further evaluated using item response theory (IRT; Samejima's graded response model), and tested using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Both EFA and CFA results were tested in a second trial with similar inclusion/exclusion characteristics (n = 410). Additional statistical properties were evaluated in healthy controls. Results: EFA suggested that the best solution after item reduction suggested a factor structure of 6 factors based on 26 items (memory, communication, self-control, executive function, attention, sharpness of thought), supporting a total score, with an additional 2-item bother score (28 items in all). IRT analysis indicated the items were well-ordered within each domain. The CFA demonstrated excellent model fit, accounting for 69% of the variance. The statistical properties of the 28-item version of the PRECIS were confirmed in the second trial. Evidence for internal consistency and test-retest reliability was robust. Known-groups validity was supported by comparison of healthy controls with patients with schizophrenia. Correlations indicated moderate associations between PRECIS and functioning instruments like the Schizophrenia Cognition Rating Scale (SCoRS), but weak correlations with performance-based outcomes like MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery (MCCB). Discussion: Using two clinical trial samples, we identified a robust factor structure for the PRECIS and were able to replicate it in the second sample. Evaluation of the meaningful score difference (MSD) should be repeated in future studies, as these samples did not show enough change for it to be evaluated. Conclusions: This analysis provides strong evidence for the reliability and validity of the PRECIS, a 28-item, patient-reported instrument to assess cognitive impairment associated with schizophrenia. The correlation with functioning and the weak correlation with performance on cognitive tasks suggests that patient reports of cognitive impairment measure a unique aspect of patient experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The most effective injective treatment approach for sacroiliac joint (SIJ) pain remains unclear. Aim of this study was to quantify the safety and effectiveness of the available injective strategies to address SIJ pain. Methods: A systematic review and meta-analysis of the literature was conducted on PubMed, Scopus, and Embase databases from inception until January 2023. Inclusion criteria were studies written in English, comparative and non-comparative studies regardless of the minimum follow-up, and case series on SIJ injections. Safety and efficacy of the different injection therapies for the SIJ were quantified. A meta-analysis was conducted on the available data of the documented injective therapies. The "Checklist for Measuring Quality" by Downs and Black was used to assess the risk of bias and the quality of papers. Results: The literature search retrieved 43 papers (2431 patients): 16 retrospective case series, 2 retrospective comparative studies, 17 prospective case series, 3 prospective comparative studies, and 5 randomized controlled trials. Of the selected studies, 63% examined the effect of steroid injections, 16% of PRP injections, while 21% reported other heterogeneous treatments. The failure rate was 26% in steroid injections and 14% in PRP injections. The meta-analysis showed a statistically significant reduction in pain with the VAS score for both steroids and PRP: steroids improvement at mid-term 3.4 points (p < 0.05), at long-term 3.0 (p < 0.05), PRP improvement at mid-term 2.2 (p = 0.007), at long-term 2.3 points of the VAS pain scale (p = 0.02). Conclusions: Steroids are the most documented injective approach, with studies showing an overall safety and effectiveness. Still, the high number of failures underlined by some studies suggest the need for alternative procedures. Early PRP data showed promise, but the limitations of the current literature do not allow to clearly define the most suitable injective approach, and further studies are needed to identify the best injective treatment for SIJ patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Statins are commonly prescribed medications with recognised side effects including muscle weakness. Despite this, little is known about their effect on the physical activity and falls risk in the older population. This paper aims to explore the relationship between statin use and the physical activity and falls risk in adults aged 65 and older. Methods: MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL and PsycINFO were searched on 21/11/2022 to obtain relevant articles. Data considered appropriate included that relating to muscle strength, grip strength, gait speed, balance and falls incidence. Reference and citation searches were performed to identify further relevant papers, and all eligible articles were subject to a Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) to assess potential bias. With the data being highly heterogeneous, no attempt to measure effect size was made and a narrative synthesis approach was used. The review proposal was registered with PROSPERO: CRD42022366159. Results: Twenty articles were included. Data were inconsistent throughout, with the overall trend suggesting no significant negative effects of statins on the parameters of physical activity, or on falls risk. This was especially true in matched and adjusted cohorts, where potential confounders had been accounted for. Conclusion: This review did not identify a relationship between statin use and physical activity and falls risk in people aged 65 years and older. Ultimately, the risks and benefits of every medication should be considered in the context of each individual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the emerging body of literature on the benefits of youth peer support, there is also evidence that peer support can have unintended negative impacts on peers themselves. It is important to explore what aspects of the peer role contribute to these difficulties in order to mitigate risks. This paper uses a participatory approach to examine the unique attributes of youth peer practice and the related challenges. We conducted semi-structured interviews and focus groups with both peer and non-peer staff from a community-based youth mental health program that provides peer support services (N = 29). Thematic analyses were completed using QSR NVivo. Analyses capture the defining features and related challenges of the peer support role (self-disclosure, boundaries, role confusion and dynamic recovery), and risk factors that affect peers (stigma, exposure to harm and burnout). This paper contributes to the literature on peer support as well as youth participatory evaluation. The findings will be useful to support the development of improved organizational contexts for peer practice and more effective peer support programming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of time series anomaly detection is constantly advancing, with several methods available, making it a challenge to determine the most appropriate method for a specific domain. The evaluation of these methods is facilitated by the use of metrics, which vary widely in their properties. Despite the existence of new evaluation metrics, there is limited agreement on which metrics are best suited for specific scenarios and domains, and the most commonly used metrics have faced criticism in the literature. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the metrics used for the evaluation of time series anomaly detection methods, and also defines a taxonomy of these based on how they are calculated. By defining a set of properties for evaluation metrics and a set of specific case studies and experiments, twenty metrics are analyzed and discussed in detail, highlighting the unique suitability of each for specific tasks. Through extensive experimentation and analysis, this paper argues that the choice of evaluation metric must be made with care, taking into account the specific requirements of the task at hand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Forcibly displaced populations are highly vulnerable to psychosocial distress and mental disorders, including alcohol misuse. In an ongoing trial that seeks to develop a transdiagnostic intervention addressing psychological distress and alcohol use disorders among conflict-affected populations, we will carry out a cost-effectiveness evaluation using a capability-based Oxford Capabilities Mental Health (OxCAP-MH) measure. The OxCAP-MH is a 16-item questionnaire developed from the Capability Approach, that covers multiple domains of functioning and welfare. The aim of the current paper is to present the results of the translation, cultural adaptation and valuation of the OxCAP-MH into Juba Arabic for South Sudanese refugees living in Uganda. We adhered to the official Translation and Linguistic Validation process of the OxCAP-MH. To carry out the translation, the Concept Elaboration document, official English version of the OxCAP-MH, and the Back-Translation Review Template were used. Four independent translators were used for forward and back translations. The reconciled translated version was then piloted in two focus group discussions (N = 16) in Rhino refugee settlement. A most important to least important valuation of the sixteen capability domains covered in the OxCAP-MH was also done. Results: The Juba Arabic version of the OxCAP-MH was finalized following a systematic iterative process. The content of the Juba Arabic version remained unchanged, but key concepts were adapted to ensure cultural acceptability, feasibility, and comprehension of the measure in the local context of Rhino refugee settlement. Most participants had low levels of literacy and required support with filling in the tool. Participants suggested an additional capability that is currently not reflected in the OxCAP-MH, namely access to food. Furthermore, discussions around the valuation exercise of the sixteen domains led to two separate importance scales, which showed relevant differences. Conclusions: In this context, the OxCAP-MH was considered culturally acceptable. The valuation exercise proved cognitively demanding. Participants voiced confusion over how to answer the questions on the OxCAP-MH instrument due to low levels of literacy. These concerns invite consideration for future research to consider how measures such as the OxCAP-MH can be made more accessible to individuals with low literacy rates in resource poor settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: D-dimer is a marker of coagulation and fibrinolysis widely used in clinical practice for assessing thrombotic activity. While it is commonly ordered in the Emergency Department (ED) for suspected venous thromboembolism (VTE), elevated D-dimer levels can occur due to various other disorders. The aim of this study was to find out the causes of elevated D-dimer in patients presenting to a large ED in Saudi Arabia and evaluate the accuracy of D-dimer in diagnosing these conditions. Methods: Data was collected from an electronic hospital information system of patients who visited the ED from January 2016 to December 2022. Demographic information, comorbidities, D-dimer levels, and diagnoses were analyzed. Statistical analysis was performed using the SPSS software. The different diagnoses associated with D-dimer levels were analyzed by plotting the median D-dimer levels for each diagnosis category and their interquartile ranges (IQR). The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were calculated and their area under the curve (AUC) values were demonstrated. The optimal cut-off points for specific diseases were determined based on the ROC analysis, along with their corresponding sensitivities and specificities. Results: A total of 19,258 patients with D-dimer results were included in the study. The mean age of the participants was 50 years with a standard deviation of ± 18. Of the patients, 66% were female and 21.2% were aged 65 or above. Additionally, 21% had diabetes mellitus, 20.4% were hypertensive, and 15.1% had been diagnosed with dyslipidemia. The median D-dimer levels varied across different diagnoses, with the highest level observed in aortic aneurysm 5.46 g/L. Pulmonary embolism (PE) and deep vein thrombosis (DVT) were found in 729 patients (3.8%) of our study population and their median D-dimer levels 3.07 g/L (IQR: 1.35–7.05 g/L) and 3.36 g/L (IQR: 1.06–8.38 g/L) respectively. On the other hand, 1767 patients (9.2%) were diagnosed with respiratory infections and 936 patients (4.9%) were diagnosed with shortness of breath (not specified) with median D-dimer levels of 0.76 g/L (IQR: 0.40–1.47 g/L) and 0.51 g/L (IQR: 0.29–1.06 g/L), respectively. D-dimer levels showed superior or excellent discrimination for PE (AUC = 0.844), leukemia (AUC = 0.848), and aortic aneurysm (AUC = 0.963). DVT and aortic dissection demonstrated acceptable discrimination, with AUC values of 0.795 and 0.737, respectively. D-dimer levels in respiratory infections and shortness of breath (not specified) exhibited poor to discriminatory performance. Conclusion: This is the first paper to identify multiple causes of elevated D-dimer levels in Saudi Arabia population within the ED and it clearly highlights their accurate and diagnostic values. These findings draw attention to the importance of considering the specific clinical context and utilizing additional diagnostic tools when evaluating patients with elevated D-dimer levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile apps for sign language are a fascinating area of research that merits a lot of attention. These apps are widely used due to their affordability and usability. Nevertheless, the quality of these apps needs to be evaluated if they are to have a significant influence. The outcomes of app quality assessment can also stimulate app development efforts and improvements to their functionality and accuracy. Therefore, to gain more in depth understanding, four academic databases (Science Direct, IEEE, Association for Computing Machinery, and Web of Science) were searched as part of a systematic literature review. The review highlighted that sign language apps require further development to support users in achieving the greatest possible usage and learning experience. We present a solution framework based on a quality assessment criterion for sign language mobile apps that could be adopted by academics and developers. Alternative identification, criteria, and development are the three primary aspects of the framework. The results demonstrate that the new assessment approach can establish a detailed set of criteria for sign language mobile app development. Future academics could gain a thorough understanding of mobile app development criteria from this study. The results are advantageous and open up a new field where researchers and developers could collaborate on sign language mobile app development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mental illnesses are the leading cause of disease burden among children and young people (CYP) globally. Low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) are disproportionately affected. Enhancing mental health literacy (MHL) is one way to combat low levels of help-seeking and effective treatment receipt. We aimed to synthesis evidence about knowledge, beliefs and attitudes of CYP in LMICs about mental illnesses, their treatments and outcomes, evaluating factors that can enhance or impede help-seeking to inform context-specific and developmentally appropriate understandings of MHL. Eight bibliographic databases were searched from inception to July 2020: PsycInfo, EMBASE, Medline (OVID), Scopus, ASSIA (ProQuest), SSCI, SCI (Web of Science) CINAHL PLUS, Social Sciences full text (EBSCO). 58 papers (41 quantitative, 13 qualitative, 4 mixed methods) representing 52 separate studies comprising 36,429 participants with a mean age of 15.3 [10.4–17.4], were appraised and synthesized using narrative synthesis methods. Low levels of recognition and knowledge about mental health problems and illnesses, pervasive levels of stigma and low confidence in professional healthcare services, even when considered a valid treatment option were dominant themes. CYP cited the value of traditional healers and social networks for seeking help. Several important areas were under-researched including the link between specific stigma types and active help-seeking and research is needed to understand more fully the interplay between knowledge, beliefs and attitudes across varied cultural settings. Greater exploration of social networks and the value of collaboration with traditional healers is consistent with promising, yet understudied, areas of community-based MHL interventions combining education and social contact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bibliometric analysis provides measures of the quality and quantity of researches undertaken by departments/individuals and indicates countries' contribution toward scientific development. The aim of this bibliometric study is to analyze scientific publications on cervical plexus blocks. Institute for Scientific Information (ISI)/Web of Knowledge Science was used for the analysis. A retrospective search was performed using the terms "cervical plexus block (CPB)," "superficial-CPB," "intermediate-CPB," "deep-CPB," "regional anesthesia in CPB," and "loco-regional anesthesia in CPB". We further analyzed these results by the "analyze" function of the software in terms of number of papers from each country, type of documentation, number of publications per year, name of journals, and authors. The number of citations to published works was also calculated by using the citation function of the same software. Two hundred sixty papers were found related to cervical plexus block. The biggest contribution was from the USA (14.61%). The acceleration of the publications began in 2004. But there were three sharp declines in 2007, 2014, and 2016, respectively, after the acceleration in publications. CPBs were most frequently employed for carotid endarterectomy. Other indications for CPB application were otoplasty, thyroid, and parathyroid surgery (for analgesia and/or anesthesia) and recently perioperative analgesia during cervical spine surgery; but the number of publications on these topics is very limited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the use of bibliometric indicators for evaluations in science is becoming more and more ubiquitous, little is known about how future publication success can be predicted from past publication success. Here, we investigated how the post-2000 publication success of 85 researchers in oncology could be predicted from their previous publication record. Our main findings are: (i) Rates of past achievement were better predictors than measures of cumulative achievement. (ii) A combination of authors' past productivity and the past citation rate of their average paper was most successful in predicting future publication success ( R ≈ 0.60). (iii) This combination of traditional bibliographic indicators clearly outperformed predictions based on the rate of the h index ( R between 0.37 and 0.52). We discuss implications of our findings for views on creativity and for science evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1927, Paul Dirac first explicitly introduced the idea that electrodynamical processes can be evaluated by decomposing them into virtual (modern terminology), energy non-conserving subprocesses. This mode of reasoning structured a lot of the perturbative evaluations of quantum electrodynamics during the 1930s. Although the physical picture connected to Feynman diagrams is no longer based on energy non-conserving transitions but on off-shell particles, emission and absorption subprocesses still remain their fundamental constituents. This article will access the introduction and the initial reception of this picture of subsequent transitions (PST) by conceiving of concepts, models, and their representations as tools for the practitioners. I will argue for a multi-factorial explanation of Dirac's initial, verbally explicit introduction: the mathematical representation he had developed was highly suggestive and already partly conceptualized; Dirac was philosophical flexible enough to talk about transitions when no actual transitions, according to the general interpretation of quantum mechanics of the time, occurred; and, importantly, Dirac eventually used the verbal exposition in the same paper in which he introduced it. The direct impact of PST on the conception of quantum electrodynamical processes will be exemplified by its reflection in diagrammatical representations. The study of the diverging ontological commitments towards PST immediately after its introduction opens up the prehistory of a philosophical debate that stretches out into the present: the dispute about the representational and ontological status of the physical picture connected to the evaluation of the perturbative series of QED and QFT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This short communication introduces the special issue based on a selection of papers first presented at the International Energy Policy and Programme Evaluation Conference in Berlin on 9 to 11 September 2014. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Referent-dependent evaluation theories propose that the ongoing context influences how the brain attributes value to stimuli. What are the implications of these theories for understanding addiction? The paper asks this question by casting this disorder as a form of maladaptive referent-dependent evaluation. Specifically, addiction is proposed to arise from the establishment of an excessive reference point following repeated drug consumption. Several key aspects of the disorder emerge from this perspective, including withdrawal, tolerance, enhanced craving, negative mood, and diminished stimulus discriminability. As highlighted in the paper, this formulation has important analogies with classical accounts of addiction, such as set point theories and associative learning theories. Moreover, this picture fits with the pattern of striatal dopaminergic activity observed in addiction, a key neural signature of the disorder. Overall, the referent-dependent evaluation approach emerges as a useful add-on to the theoretical toolkit adopted to interpret addiction. This also supports the idea that referent-dependent evaluation might offer a general framework to understand various disorders characterised by disrupted motivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of scientific information about future weather and climate offers enormous potential for society to better manage the risks associated with climate variability and change. There has been significant investment in weather and climate services (WCS) over the past years; however, empirically based evidence of the socio-economic benefits of such services is very limited. Understanding and capturing the real benefits of WCS as they unfold on the ground are key to ensure continue investment in WCS as well as to enable adaptive management. In this paper, we conduct a review of the literature of WCS evaluations in South Asia. We systematically document and analyse empirical evidence as reported in the academic and grey literature to highlight (1) the scale and scope of WCS that have been evaluated in the region; (2) the methodological approaches that have been used to monitor and evaluate the benefits of WCS initiatives on the ground and (3) the socio-economic benefits of WCS categorised under a triple bottom line approach that takes into consideration economic, social and environmental benefits. The paper explores these findings and highlights key areas that warrant further discussion and research. These include a limited effort to systematically record and document the benefits of WCS and an over-emphasis on capturing evidence of short-term economic benefits at the expense of long-term economic benefits, as well as social and environmental benefits. We conclude this paper with a call for increased cooperation between meteorologists, economists and social researchers to develop empirical case studies of benefits and trade-offs as they occur on the ground. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores potential ways of evaluating the implicit learning that may be present in autonomous smart learning activities and environments, reflecting on prior phenomenographic research into smart learning activities positioned as local journeys in urban connected public spaces. Implicit learning is considered as intrinsic motivation, value and richer engagement by participants, demonstrating levels of experience complexity, interpreted as levels of implicit learning. The paper reflects on ideas for evaluating implicit smart learning through planning for experience complexity in the context of a pedagogical model, the Pedagogy of Experience Complexity for Smart Learning (PECSL), developed from the research. By supplementing this model with further conceptual mechanisms to describe experience complexity as surface to deep learning alongside cognitive domain taxonomy equivalences, implicit smart learning might be evaluated in broad flexible ways to support the design of more effective and engaging activities. Examples are outlined placing emphasis on learner generated content, learner-directed creative learning and supporting dialogue and reflection, attempting to illustrate how implicit learning might manifest and be evaluated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eugene Garfield, always insisted that citation analysis “can be used wisely or abused” and that it is “up to the scientific community to prevent abuse of the SCI by devoting the necessary attention to its proper and judicious exploitation” (Garfield in Nat 227:669–671, 1970). Dedicated to his memory, this paper aim to assess the significance of a parameter that is seldom taken into account in evaluation studies: the existence of a USA comparative citation (visibility) advantage built in the database and thus affecting countries that collaborate more with the USA than with other countries. We analyze how this USA citation advantage affects the measure of the scientific impact (usually measured through citations received) of major countries. The main conclusion coming out of this study is that, given the strong presence of the USA in the WoS database, the comparative rankings tend, by construction, to give a citation advantage to countries having the closest relation to that country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to present the results of a systematic review focused on usability evaluation methods for serious games (SG) of mobile devices applicable to health care. The research questioned which usability evaluation methods have been available for mobile serious games. The research was conducted into four databases (ACM, IEEE, Science Direct and Springer) in two periods (23-30 March, 2015, and 01-07 June, 2016). After evaluating 2191 papers, the researchers considered that 9 met the eligibility criteria. As a result, similarities between some methodologies used have been found, however a specific methodology for SGs usability evaluation applicable to health has not been encountered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The assessment encompasses essential concepts and their related measures about the information gathered. The conceptualization within a study becomes imperative to ascertain the corresponding variables and establish appropriate methodologies for their measurement. The willingness to communicate (WTC) concept, an individual's engagement in communication when given the opportunity, has become a crucial point in second language (L2) learning due to language use and communication. While studies have rendered valuable insights into the differing presentations of L1 WTC and L2 WTC, the subject remains largely unexplored concerning the conceptualization and assessment of L2 WTC in the digital settings and English as a foreign language (EFL) context. The scoping review can aid in advancing our knowledge in this area of investigation by exploring the scope of available research literature on a topic by identifying key concepts and sources of evidence as well as identifying strengths, weaknesses, and gaps in the research that inform practice in the field, deepen assessors' knowledge in the field, and highlight areas that require further inquiry. This study conducted a five-stage scoping review, including (1) establishing the scoping review questions, (2) identifying the related research, (3) determining the inclusion criteria of studies, (4) outlining the data, and (5) analyzing and reporting the results. Six databases, ERIC (ProQuest), APA PsycINFO, JSTORE, Elsevier (Scopus), Web of Science Core Collection, and Semantic Scholar, were used for scoping data. Forty-seven studies were included in the final analysis. The results discuss the WTC conceptualizations and their directions in L1, L2, and EFL contexts. Furthermore, the results discuss the conceptualization of classroom-centered and context-bounded WTC, operationalization of WTC in digital and EFL contexts, methodological approaches applied for evaluating WTC, the evaluation of teachers' status in WTC conceptualization, and future directions. The discussions would prove useful in expanding our understanding of how to act toward L2 WTC and the assessment knowledge. Moreover, they would have significant implications for teachers, researchers, assessors, and practitioners in this field. Further, we hope this paper sparks renewed interest in L2 WTC by generating new ideas for researchers to conduct further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the GPDS (Getting Started, Planning, Design, and Sustainability) Planning Framework for Social Marketing. A qualitative research design was employed. Data were collected from social marketing experts using the Delphi method and analyzed using the thematic analysis approach. The proposed framework includes key strengths of existing Social Marketing Planning (SMP) approaches. It also embeds emerging social marketing principles in the planning process, such as 'Continuous Consumer Research and Feedback Loop' (embracing key aspects of monitoring and evaluation) and 'Expert Consultation' to overcome the lack of clarity on the interdisciplinary language used in the field. Importantly, the critical aspect of 'Sustainability' in the changed behavior is incorporated, aligning with the global consensus definition of social marketing and the United Nations' (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) focus on sustainable outcomes. Both theory and practice have been applied to the development and verification process of the proposed framework. The framework has consensus from 23 social marketing experts worldwide, drawing on current best practices and experts' opinions/experience in the field. The GPDS Planning Framework for Social Marketing offers a comprehensive list of sources in the accompanying toolkit, including various activities for insight, design, implementation, and evaluation. This enables practitioners to prepare, plan and deliver social marketing programs to sustain behavioral outcomes. This research informs those working in social marketing, social policy, behavioral insight/design, public health, health communication, and service-user experience. These disciplines deploy social marketing practices in the design and delivery of interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current article evaluates a national English language proficiency test known as the "MSRT test" which is used to determine the eligibility of candidates for admission to and completion of higher education programs in Iran. Students in all majors take this standardized, high-stake criterion-referenced test to determine if they have obtained the minimum English proficiency level and can be graduated. The present paper seeks to examine the test and its psychometrics characteristics due to the significance of such a high-stakes examination that may have social and long-lasting effects on the participants. It is claimed that the test measures participants' "knowledge of language" for communication rather than their "knowledge about language" in a constrained context. As a result, the test dimensionality and validity are up for debate. It was found that fundamental revisions in terms of test format and content are required to improve the test quality. The current study examined the areas that are yet unexplored and attempts to describe the MSRT assessment comprehensively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper introduces a methodology for extracting opinion aspects from textual content by identifying the customer-evaluated parameters regarding a given object. These parameters form the foundation for shaping the customer's attitudes toward the product or service. The proposed approach leverages topic modeling tools to delineate classes of vocabulary exhibiting semantics aligned with the parameters influencing the customer's opinion about the object. Our study specifically explores the application of the BERTopic model as a topic modeling tool to address this challenge. The outlined methodology encompasses several sequential steps, including the preprocessing of textual data involving the removal of stopwords, conversion to lowercase characters, and lemmatization. Additionally, special consideration is given to the distinct lexical manifestations of opinion aspects, obtained as a result of the extraction of nominal, verbal, and adjectival single- and multicomponent phrases from the corpus. Subsequently, the corpus sentences are represented as vectors in a feature space expressed by the extracted words and phrases. The final step involves the application of topic modeling using the BERTopic model on the customer review corpus, utilizing the vector representations of corpus sentences. The experimental inquiry is conducted on a domain-specific Russian-language corpus comprising customer feedback on airline services gathered from customer review websites. The resultant topic distribution is then juxtaposed against a manually constructed conceptual model of the domain. The comparative analysis reveals that the automatic topic distribution aligns with the conceptual structure of the domain, demonstrating a precision of 0.955 and a recall of 0.875. These findings affirm the efficacy of employing the BERTopic model to address the problem of the corpus-based mining of opinion aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The aim of this systematic review was to assess the impact of time to surgery on patient mortality, peri-operative complication rates and length of stay following a hip fracture using level one data. Data Sources: Multiple databases (PubMed, Embase, Medline (Ovid), and Cochrane Library) were searched using terms for "hip fracture" and the intervention "early surgery". Results were filtered to only included randomised controlled trials in the English language published from the year 2000. Study Selection: All results were imported into Covidence and screened by two separate reviewers with conflicts resolved by a third reviewer. Studies were included if they reported data on the relationship between time to theatre and at least one of the outcome measures (mortality, peri-operative complications, and length of stay in hospital). Three papers were finalised to include in this review. Data Extraction: Once selected, each paper had a bias assessment completed by two separate reviewers using the Cochrane RoB2 tool. Any conflicts were resolved by a third reviewer. Data Synthesis: Data from each paper were inputted into RevMan5 for analysis. Approximated sample mean and standard deviation were collected from each paper and included for analysis. RevMan5 was then used to generate forest plots and report data on relative risk and mean difference. Conclusions: This review has shown that accelerated care of patients with hip fractures was associated with lower risks of delirium and infection, and a shorter length of hospital stay. However, the effect of time to surgery on patient mortality is not clear, as the standard care group had a lower mortality than expected for the population at risk and had surgery on average within 24-h of presentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]