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Despite extensive ethnographic and qualitative research on traditional healers in Nepal, the role of traditional healers in relation to mental health has not been synthesized. We focused on the following clinically based research question, "What are the processes by which Nepali traditional healers address mental well-being?" We adopted a scoping review methodology to maximize the available literature base and conducted a modified thematic analysis rooted in grounded theory, ethnography, and phenomenology. We searched five databases using terms related to traditional healers and mental health. We contacted key authors and reviewed references for additional literature. Our scoping review yielded 86 eligible studies, 65 of which relied solely on classical qualitative study designs. The reviewed literature suggests that traditional healers use a wide range of interventions that utilize magico-religious explanatory models to invoke symbolic transference, manipulation of local illness narratives, roles, and relationships, cognitive restructuring, meaning-making, and catharsis. Traditional healers' perceived impact appears greatest for mild to moderate forms of psychological distress. However, the methodological and sample heterogeneity preclude uniform conclusions about traditional healing. Further research should employ methods which are both empirically sound and culturally adapted to explore the role of traditional healers in mental health.

Researchers based in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) often cannot access conventional but high-priced ethnographic tools. I developed a low-cost methodology as an exercise in meeting the needs of both LMIC-based researchers and the broader qualitative community. As demonstrated in this proof of concept, ethnographic researchers should strive for a suite of open access software tools and common and affordable hardware to reduce inequities in knowledge generation and dissemination.

Indigenous Peoples in Canada experience inequities in behavioral health outcomes stemming from colonial subjugation, including tacit cultural assimilation through health care. Indigenous communities assert that culturally commensurate health interventions improve wellbeing. This study, conducted with clients and staff at a First Nations behavioral health treatment program, sought to identify how respondents conceived of the therapeutic endeavor with respect to possibilities for remedying colonial injuries such as the abuses of the Indian Residential Schools (IRSs). Thematic analysis of 32 interviews revealed that targeted therapeutic goals as well as specific counselor qualities were important for a positive therapeutic experience for those in the program. Ultimately, assimilative practices, such as the IRSs of the past and mainstream behavioral health treatment programs in the present may collectively contribute to the continuation of inequities in health outcomes for Indigenous Canadians. Decolonizing the therapeutic endeavor offers a potential avenue for positive change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canopy imaging offers a non-destructive, efficient way to objectively measure canopy size, detect stress symptoms, and assess pigment concentrations. While it is faster and easier than traditional destructive methods, manual image analysis, including segmentation and evaluation, can be time-consuming. To make imaging more widely accessible, it's essential to reduce the cost of imaging systems and automate the analysis process. We developed a low-cost imaging system with automated analysis using an embedded microcomputer equipped with a monochrome camera and a filter for a total hardware cost of ~USD 500. Our imaging system takes images under blue, green, red, and infrared light, as well as chlorophyll fluorescence. The system uses a Python-based program to collect and analyze images automatically. The multi-spectral imaging system separates plants from the background using a chlorophyll fluorescence image, which is also used to quantify canopy size. The system then generates normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI, "greenness") images and histograms, providing quantitative, spatially resolved information. We verified that these indices correlate with leaf chlorophyll content and can easily add other indices by installing light sources with the desired spectrums. The low cost of the system can make this imaging technology widely available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) can efficiently purify hydrocarbons from CO2, but their rapid saturation, driven by preferential hydrocarbon adsorption, requires energy‐intensive adsorption–desorption processes. To address these challenges, an innovative approach is developed, enabling control over MOF flexibility through densification and defect engineering, resulting in an intriguing inverse CO2/C2 hydrocarbon selectivity. In this study, the densification process induces the shearing of the crystal lattice and contraction of pores in a defective CuBTC MOF. These changes have led to a remarkable transformation in selectivity, where the originally hydrocarbon‐selective CuBTC MOF becomes CO2‐selective. The selectivity values for densified CuBTC are significantly reversed when compared to its powder form, with notable improvements observed in CO2/C2H6 (4416 vs 0.61), CO2/C2H4 (15 vs 0.28), and CO2/C2H2 (4 vs 0.2). The densified material shows impressive separation, regeneration, and recyclability during dynamic breakthrough experiments with complex quinary gas mixtures. Simulation studies indicate faster CO2 passage through the tetragonal structure of densified CuBTC compared to C2H2. Experimental kinetic diffusion studies confirm accelerated CO2 diffusion over hydrocarbons in the densified MOF, attributed to its small pore window and minimal interparticle voids. This research introduces a promising strategy for refining existing and future MOF materials, enhancing their separation performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purification of ethylene (C2H4) as the most extensive and output chemical, from complex multi-components is of great significance but highly challenging. Herein we demonstrate that precise pore structure tuning by controlling the network hydrogen bonds in two highly-related porous coordination networks can shift the efficient C2H4 separation function from C2H2/C2H4/C2H6 ternary mixture to CO2/C2H2/C2H4/C2H6 quaternary mixture system. Single-crystal X-ray diffraction revealed that the different amino groups on the triazolate ligands resulted in the change of the hydrogen bonding in the host network, which led to changes in the pore shape and pore chemistry. Gas adsorption isotherms, adsorption kinetics and gas-loaded crystal structure analysis indicated that the coordination network Zn-fa-atz (2) weakened the affinity for three C2 hydrocarbons synchronously including C2H4 but enhanced the CO2 adsorption due to the optimized CO2-host interaction and the faster CO2 diffusion, leading to effective C2H4 production from the CO2/C2H2/C2H4/C2H6 mixture in one step based on the experimental and simulated breakthrough data. Moreover, it can be shaped into spherical pellets with maintained porosity and separation performance. C2H4 is one of the most important chemical raw materials. Here, the authors report that tuning of pore structure shifts the multi-component gas separation function, enabling one-step production of high-purity C2H4 in the quaternary mixture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A combined experimental, inelastic neutron scattering (INS), and theoretical study of H2 adsorption was carried out in Cu-ATC and Cu-BTC, two metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) that consist of Cu2+ ions coordinated to 1,3,5,7-adamantanetetracarboxylate (ATC) and 1,3,5-benzenetricarboxylate (BTC) linkers, respectively. Experimental measurements revealed that Cu-ATC exhibits higher H2 uptake at low pressures than Cu-BTC, but saturates more quickly on account of its lower surface area. This results in a higher isosteric heat of adsorption (Qst) value at zero-coverage for Cu-ATC (12.63 kJ mol−1). Grand canonical Monte Carlo (GCMC) simulations of H2 adsorption in both MOFs produced isotherms that are in outstanding agreement with the corresponding experimental measurements at 77 and 87 K and pressures up to 1 atm. The simulations revealed that the H2 molecules initially bind onto the Cu2+ ions of the copper paddlewheel ([Cu2(O2CR)4]) units in both MOFs. In Cu-ATC, however, a H2 molecule can interact with two Cu2+ ions of adjacent paddlewheels simultaneously, which provides for a favorable, synergistic interactions. The INS spectra of H2 adsorbed in Cu-ATC and Cu-BTC showed neutron energy transfer peaks occurring at approximately 7.5 and 8.9 meV, respectively; these peaks correspond to the binding of H2 onto the open-metal sites in both MOFs. The lower energy peak for Cu-ATC indicates that the adsorbed H2 molecules experience a higher barrier to rotation and a stronger interaction with the host relative to Cu-BTC. These results were supported by two-dimensional quantum rotation calculations. This study demonstrates how differences in the H2 adsorption mechanism between two prototypal MOFs with copper paddlewheel units can be discerned through a combination of experimental measurements and theoretical calculations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A metal–organic framework, SDMOF-1, with rigid pores of about 3.4 Å, which is appropriate for accommodating C2H2 molecules, exhibits high C2H2 adsorption capacity and great separation capability of the C2H2/C2H4 mixture. This work provides a new method to design aliphatic MOFs with a molecular sieving effect to realize efficient gas separation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Studies evaluating the economic burden of dermatological care in the transplant setting are currently not available in Australia. Aims: To evaluate the clinical and economic burden of benign and malignant skin lesions in renal transplant recipients in Central Queensland. Methods: A bottom‐up approach was used to determine the clinical burden and direct costs from patient‐level Medicare data obtained from Service Australia for skin lesions. Results: Seventy‐six percent of the renal transplant population in Central Queensland participated in this study. The median age was 57.0 years (standard deviation ± 13.6) and the majority (61.8%) of participants were men. The mean duration after transplant surgery was 99.9 months (interquartile range, 73.2–126.6 months). During a 2‐year follow‐up, 22 (40%) patients were diagnosed with benign skin lesions, 21 (38%) with nonmelanoma skin carcinoma (NMSC) and one (2%) with melanoma. There was a total of 231 visits to clinicians for diagnostic and therapeutic skin procedures and the direct costs to Medicare was $48 806 Australian Dollars (AUD) or $30 427 US Dollars (USD). Approximately 86% of the total direct costs was spent for nonNMSC and mean direct costs for NMSC was $763 AUD (or $476 USD). Conclusion: This Medicare data‐based study provides further insight into the burgeoning clinical and economic burden of the care for benign and malignant skin lesions in the renal transplantation setting in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores behavioral health services for American Indians and Alaska Natives (AIANs) at six Urban Indian Health Programs (UIHPs). Interviews and focus groups with clinicians and staff inquired about behavioral health treatment available, service needs, client population, and financial and staffing challenges. Resulting site profiles were created based on focused coding and integrative memoing of site visit field notes and respondent transcripts. These six UIHPs evidenced diversity across multiple facets of service delivery even as they were united in their missions to provide accessible and effective behavioral health treatment to urban AIAN clients. Primary challenges to service provision included heterogenous client populations, low insurance coverage, limited provider knowledge, lack of resources, and incorporation of traditional healing. Collaborative research with UIHPs harbors the potential to recognize challenges, identify solutions, and share best practices across this crucial network of health care sites for improving urban AIAN well‐being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adsorption‐based removal of carbon dioxide (CO2) from gas mixtures has demonstrated great potential for solving energy security and environmental sustainability challenges. However, due to similar physicochemical properties between CO2 and other gases as well as the co‐adsorption behavior, the selectivity of CO2 is severely limited in currently reported CO2‐selective sorbents. To address the challenge, we create a bioinspired design strategy and report a robust, microporous metal–organic framework (MOF) with unprecedented [Mn86] nanocages. Attributed to the existence of unique enzyme‐like confined pockets, strong coordination interactions and dipole‐dipole interactions are generated for CO2 molecules, resulting in only CO2 molecules fitting in the pocket while other gas molecules are prohibited. Thus, this MOF can selectively remove CO2 from various gas mixtures and show record‐high selectivities of CO2/CH4 and CO2/N2 mixtures. Highly efficient CO2/C2H2, CO2/CH4, and CO2/N2 separations are achieved, as verified by experimental breakthrough tests. This work paves a new avenue for the fabrication of adsorbents with high CO2 selectivity and provides important guidance for designing highly effective adsorbents for gas separation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]