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Mixed methods research is a third research paradigm that integrates qualitative and quantitative research. By combining the advantages of qualitative and quantitative research and analyzing specific problems more widely and deeply, it can increase the universality of research results and is applicable to study complex problems. At present, the application of mixed method in domestic medical research is still in the early stage, and there is no unified standard in the reporting specifications. The Mixed Methods Article Reporting Standard (MMARS) is one of the Journal Article Reporting Standards (JARS). This paper comprehensively introduces MMARS and interpret MMARS through example applications, in order to provide reference for improving the quality of reporting.

Background In the face of the surge of primary studies within a certain period of time, the traditional time-consuming systematic review method is difficult to provide evidence-based basis for clinical practice. Rapid review (RR), as an extension of systematic review, can integrate existing research in a limited time to meet the need for rapid decision-making. Currently, RR has been widely used in the field of medical research, but its application status remains unclear. Objective To explore the current status and hotspot of RR research by using bibliometric analysis. Method CNKI and WOS databases were searched for the researches in the field of RR application from 2001 to 2023, a visualization analysis was performed on annual publication volume, countries, institutions, authors, journals, and keywords of Chinese and English literature by the bibliometrics software of VOSviewer and CiteSpace. Results A total of 151 articles in Chinese and 1197 in English were included. The publication volume of RR application increased gradually from 2001 to 2023, but the publication volume in foreign was higher than that in China, with more obvious increasing trend. The United Kingdom was the country with the highest publication volume (252), the University of Toronto in Canada was the institution with the highest publication volume (52), and Peking University Third Hospital ranked first in publication volume in China (23). The journal Evaluation and Analysis of Drug-use in Hospitals of China had the highest publication volume in China (22), and the journal BMJ Open had the highest publication volume abroad (42). In China, the author team mainly composed of MEN Peng, ZHAI Suodi and ZHAO Zinan published more research. In foreign, the authors of NUSSBAUMER-STREIT, GARTLEHNER and TRICCO published more studies. The most frequently cited literature in China was mainly about RR application and methodology, rapid assessments of drugs or technologies, and the impact of COVID-19, while the most frequently cited literature in foreign was mainly about the the impact, intervention, and epidemiological factors of COVID-19, or methodological studies of RR. Domestic research hotspots mainly focused on the field of rapid health technology assessment in the safety, efficacy, and cost effectiveness of intervention for chronic or serious diseases. Foreign research hotspots mainly focused on the etiology, intervention, diagnosis, prevention, and impact of COVID-19, and rapid evidence synthesis related to decision-making, such as the safety and effectiveness of the drug intervention in children, health care, cancer treatment or mortality risk in middle-aged and elderly populations. Conclusion At present, there is a great difference in the development of RR application in the medical field at home and abroad. The application of RR in foreign is gradually maturing, but in China, it is still in the preliminary stage. The experience of RR application in foreign can be learned to expand the development of domestic RR application.

Solvent fluxing is a unique procedure of hot-dip galvanizing, which directly affects the quality and uniformity of hot-dip galvanized coating. This paper introduced the role and principle of the flux for hot-dip galvanizing, and analyzed the effects of the total concentration, temperature, pH value and Fe2+ concentration on the results of the fluxing and hot dip galvanizing. Furthermore, the types and research progresses of new ammonium-free fluxes as well as the fluxes for hot-dip Zn-Al(Mg) alloys were introduced, and the problems and future development directions of the fluxing technology of hot-dip galvanizing were pointed out.

We report wafer-scale growth of atomically thin, three-dimensional (3D) van der Waals (vdW) semiconductor membranes. By controlling the growth kinetics in the near-equilibrium limit during metal-organic chemical vapor depositions of MoS2 and WS2 monolayer (ML) crystals, we have achieved conformal ML coverage on diverse 3D texture substrates, such as periodic arrays of nanoscale needles and trenches on quartz and SiO2/Si substrates. The ML semiconductor properties, such as channel resistivity and photoluminescence, are verified to be seamlessly uniform over the 3D textures and are scalable to wafer scale. In addition, we demonstrated that these 3D films can be easily delaminated from the growth substrates to form suspended 3D semiconductor membranes. Our work suggests that vdW ML semiconductor films can be useful platforms for patchable membrane electronics with atomic precision, yet large areas, on arbitrary substrates.

To meet the requirement of autonomous driving development, high-quality point cloud generation of the environment has become the focus of 4D mmWave radar development. On the basis of mass producibility and physical verifiability, a design method for improving the quality and density of point cloud imagery is proposed in this paper, including antenna design, array design, and the dynamic detection method. The utilization of apertures is promoted through antenna design and sparse MIMO array optimization using the genetic algorithm (GA). The hybrid strategy for complex point clouds is adopted using the proposed dynamic CFAR algorithm, which enables dynamic adjustment of the threshold by discriminating and calculating different scanning regions. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by simulations and practical experiments. Aiming at system manufacture, analysis methods for the ambiguity function (AF) and shooting and bouncing rays (SBR) tracing are introduced, and an mmWave radar system is realized based on the proposed method, with its performance proven by practical experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The profiles of bile acids (BAs) in patients with gallstone disease (GSD) have been found to be altered markedly though in an inconsistent pattern. This study aims to characterize the variation of the BA profiles in GSD patients, thereby to discover the potential metabolite biomarkers for earlier detection of GSD. Methods: Literature search of eight electronic database in both English and Chinese was completed on May 11, 2023. The qualitative and quantitative reviews were performed to summarize the changes of BA profiles in GSD patients compared with healthy subjects. The concentrations of BAs were adopted as the primary outcomes and the weighted mean differences (WMDs) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were generated by random-effects meta-analysis models. Results: A total of 30 studies were enrolled which included 2313 participants and reported the 39 BAs or their ratios. Qualitative review demonstrated serum Taurocholic Acid (TCA), Glycochenodeoxycholic acid (GCDCA), Glycocholic acid (GCA), Taurochenodeoxycholic acid (TCDCA), Glycodeoxycholic acid (GDCA) and Deoxycholic acid (DCA) were significantly increased in GSD patients compared with healthy subjects. Meta analysis was performed in 16 studies and showed that serum Total BAs (TBA) (WMD = 1.36μmol/L, 95%CI = 0.33; 2.4) was elevated however bile TBA (WMD = -36.96mmol/L, 95%CI = -52.32; -21.6) was declined in GSD patients. GCA (WMD = 0.83μmol/L, 95%CI = 0.06; 1.6) and TCA (WMD = 0.51μmol/L; 95%CI = 0.18; 0.85) were both increased in serum sample; TCDCA (WMD = 2.64mmol/L, 95%CI = 0.16; 5.12) was rising, however GCDCA (WMD = -13.82mmol/L, 95%CI = -21.86; -5.78) was falling in bile sample of GSD patients. The level of serum DCA in the GSD patients was found to be increased by using chromatography, yet decreased by chromatography mass spectrometry. Conclusion: The profiles of BAs demonstrated distinctive changes in GSD patients compared with healthy control subjects. Serum GCA, TCA and GCDCA, as the typically variant BAs, presented as a potential marker for earlier diagnosis of GSD, which could facilitate early prophylactic intervention. Yet, further validation of these biomarkers by longitudinal studies is still warranted in the future. PROSPERO registration number CRD42022339649. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]