Impact of a Virtual Reality Intervention on Stigma, Empathy, and Attitudes Toward Patients With Psychotic Disorders Among Mental Health Care Professionals: Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: Previous studies have found that psychotic disorders are among the most stigmatized mental disorders. Of note, virtual reality (VR) interventions have been associated with improvements in attitudes and empathy and reduced stigma toward individuals with psychotic disorders, especially among undergraduates, but this has not been examined among mental health care professionals.

Objective: We aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a newly developed VR intervention for mental health care professionals to improve attitudes and empathy and reduce stigma toward people with psychotic disorders.

A Bibliometric Analysis on the Risk Factors of Cancer.

Given the high lethality of cancer, identifying its risk factors is crucial in both epidemiology and cancer research. This study employs a novel bibliometric analysis method, which uses the tidytext package and tidy tools in R. This approach surpasses traditional tools like VOSviewer, offering more comprehensive and complex keyword data and clearer results compared to Bibliometrix.

Weak H-Bond Interface Environment for Stable Aqueous Zinc Batteries.

Hydrogen evolution reaction and Zn dendrite growth, originating from high water activity and the adverse competition between the electrochemical kinetics and mass transfer, are the main constraints for the commercial applications of the aqueous zinc-based batteries. Herein, a weak H-bond interface with a suspension electrolyte is developed by adding TiO nanoparticles into the electrolytes. Owing to the strong polarity of Ti-O bonds in TiO, abundant hydroxyl functional groups are formed between the TiO active surface and aqueous environment, which can produce a weak H-bond interface by disrupting the initial H-bond networks between the water molecules, thereby accelerating the mass transfer of Zn and reducing the water activity.

Photocatalytic upcycling of polylactic acid to alanine by sulfur vacancy-rich cadmium sulfide.

Photocatalytic conversion has emerged as a promising strategy for harnessing renewable solar energy in the valorization of plastic waste. However, research on the photocatalytic transformation of plastics into valuable nitrogen-containing chemicals remains limited. In this study, we present a visible-light-driven pathway for the conversion of polylactic acid (PLA) into alanine under mild conditions.

Fish collagen mediated alteration of wheat starch thermal properties during multi-species co-fermentation.

This study explores the impact of multi-species co-fermentation on the thermal properties of wheat starch, emphasizing the innovative use of fish collagen as an additive. The effects of adding different levels of fish collagen (0 %, 3 %, 6 %, 9 %, 12 %, and 15 %) on the thermal properties of starch were investigated during co-fermentation with Lactobacillus plantarum and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Utilizing analytical techniques such as X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), we observed a significant increase in the degree of order from 1.

From Clinical to Benchside: Lacticaseibacillus and Faecalibacterium Are Positively Associated With Muscle Health and Alleviate Age-Related Muscle Disorder.

Sarcopenia is an age-related muscle disorder that increases risks of adverse clinical outcomes, but its treatments are still limited. Gut microbiota is potentially associated with sarcopenia, and its role is still unclear. To investigate the role of gut microbiota in sarcopenia, we first compared gut microbiota and metabolites composition in old participants with or without sarcopenia.

Cyberbullying Victimization and Mental Health Symptoms Among Children and Adolescents: A Meta-Analysis of Longitudinal Studies.

Cyberbullying victimization and mental health symptoms are major concerns for children and adolescents worldwide. Despite the increasing number of longitudinal studies of cyberbullying and mental health among this demographic, the robustness of the causal associations between cyberbullying victimization and the magnitude of mental health symptoms remains unclear. This meta-analysis investigated the longitudinal impact of cyberbullying victimization on mental health symptoms among children and adolescents.

High-Uniformity, Shape-Controlled Silicon Nanowires for Enhanced Performance in Optoelectronic Devices.

Silicon nanowires (Si NWs) have attracted considerable interest owing to their distinctive properties, which render them promising candidates for a wide range of advanced applications in electronics, photonics, energy storage, and sensing. However, challenges in achieving large-scale production, high uniformity, and shape control limit their practical use. This study presents a novel fabrication approach combining nanoimprint lithography, nanotransfer printing, and metal-assisted chemical etching to produce highly uniform and shape-controlled Si NW arrays.

Abrupt lateral beam shifts from terahertz quasi-bound states in the continuum.

Bound states in the continuum (BICs) are notable in photonics for their infinite Q factors. Perturbed BICs, or quasi-BICs (QBICs), have finite but ultra-high Q factors, enabling external coupling. So far, most studies have focused on the momentum-space properties of BICs and QBICs, with few discussions on their properties in real space.

Outcome evaluation and cost-effectiveness analysis for an integrated multidisciplinary diabetic limb salvage program: a combined observational and simulation study.

Introduction: To compare the clinical outcomes and healthcare utilization of patients enrolled in the multidisciplinary Diabetic Foot in Primary and Tertiary (DEFINITE) Care program with a matched historical cohort and estimate the program's long-term cost-effectiveness using simulation.

Research Design And Methods: This study consisted of two components: a 1-year observational outcome evaluation and a long-term simulation-based cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA). We conducted an observational study to analyze 2798 patients with diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs) enrolled in the program between June 2020 and June 2021 (DEFINITE Care group) and 5462 patients with DFUs from June 2016 to December 2017 as historical controls.

Examining the moderation of the relationship between socio-economic status and consumption intentions by food information labels.

Front-of-package-labelling needs to portray health and/or sustainability information effectively to all consumers in a way that is both effective and equitable. There is mixed evidence for the effectiveness of such labels based on socioeconomic status (SES). Framing health consequences in an intuitive manner could help to reduce disparities in label comprehension across SES.

Optical signatures of lattice strain in chemically doped colloidal quantum wells.

Lattice strain plays a vital role in tailoring the optoelectronic performance of colloidal nanocrystals (NCs) with exotic geometries. Although optical identifications of lattice strain in irregular-shaped NCs or hetero-structured NCs have been well documented, less is known about optical signatures of the sparsely distributed lattice mismatch in chemically-doped NCs. Here, we show that coherent acoustic phonons (CAPs) following bandgap optical excitations in Cu-doped CdSe colloidal quantum wells (CQWs) offer a unique platform for indirectly measuring the dopant-induced lattice strain.

Real-time isolation of physiological tremor using recursive singular spectrum analysis and random vector functional link for surgical robotics.

Hand-held robotic instruments enhance precision in microsurgery by mitigating physiological tremor in real time. Current tremor filtering algorithms in these instruments often employ nonlinear phase prefilters to isolate the tremor signal. However, these filters introduce phase distortion in the filtered tremor, compromising accuracy.

Bone regeneration: The influence of composite HA/TCP scaffolds and electrical stimulation on TGF/BMP and RANK/RANKL/OPG pathways.

The repair of critical-sized bone defects represents significant clinical challenge. An alternative approach is the use of 3D composite scaffolds to support bone regeneration. Hydroxyapatite (HA) and tri-calcium phosphate (β-TCP), combined with polycaprolactone (PCL), offer promising mechanical resistance and biocompatibility.

Sit is not lit: Examining the impact of message framing, modality, and peer influence on attitudes and intentions to reduce sedentary behavior.

This study examines the effects of gain-loss framing, messaging modality, peer influence, and individual factors such as social norms and self-efficacy on the attitudes and intentions to reduce sedentary behaviors among university students, specifically through (a) taking breaks and (b) taking 10,000 steps daily. We conducted a two-week health campaign field experiment on Instagram in January 2022, delivering ten posts with tailored messages to 284 university students in Singapore (valid N = 249). The participants were predominantly female (70.

Palmitate potentiates the SMAD3-PAI-1 pathway by reducing nuclear GDF15 levels.

Nuclear growth differentiation factor 15 (GDF15) reduces the binding of the mothers' against decapentaplegic homolog (SMAD) complex to its DNA-binding elements. However, the stimuli that control this process are unknown. Here, we examined whether saturated fatty acids (FA), particularly palmitate, regulate nuclear GDF15 levels and the activation of the SMAD3 pathway in human skeletal myotubes and mouse skeletal muscle, where most insulin-stimulated glucose use occurs in the whole organism.

Data-Driven Discovery of High-Performance Heterobilayer Transition Metal Dichalcogenide-Based Sliding Ferroelectrics.

The development of efficient sliding ferroelectric (FE) materials is crucial for advancing next-generation low-power nanodevices. Currently, most efforts focus on homobilayer two-dimensional materials, except for the experimentally reported heterobilayer sliding FE, MoS/WS. Here, we first screened 870 transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) bilayer heterostructures derived from experimentally characterized monolayer TMDs and systematically investigated their sliding ferroelectric behavior across various stacking configurations using high-throughput calculations.

Towards a Theory of Compassion Fatigue in Palliative Care and Oncology: A Systematic Scoping Review.

Background: In their care of terminally ill patients, palliative care physicians and oncologists are increasingly predisposed to physical and emotional exhaustion, or compassion fatigue (CF). Challenges faced by physicians include complex care needs; changing practice demands, and sociocultural contextual factors. Efforts to better understand CF have, however, been limited.

Long-term use of low-dose aspirin for cancer prevention: A 20-year longitudinal cohort study of 1,506,525 Hong Kong residents.

Long-term use of low-dose aspirin has been demonstrated to reduce cancer risk, but the duration of necessary medication use remains uncertain. This study aimed to investigate the long-term chemoprotective effect of aspirin among the Chinese population. This population-based study included all aspirin users between 2000 and 2019.

Suppression of Aedes aegypti may not affect sympatric Aedes albopictus populations: findings from two years of entomological surveillance in Singapore.

Globally, multiple trials have successfully demonstrated the effectiveness of novel tools, such as the sterile and incompatible insect techniques, in suppressing Aedes aegypti populations. However, there is concern that Aedes albopictus, another arbovirus-competent vector, may occupy the niches vacated by Ae. aegypti in areas where these species occur in sympatry.

Lipidic folding pathway of α-Synuclein via a toxic oligomer.

Aggregation intermediates play a pivotal role in the assembly of amyloid fibrils, which are central to the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases. The structures of filamentous intermediates and mature fibrils are now efficiently determined by single-particle cryo-electron microscopy. By contrast, smaller pre-fibrillar α-Synuclein (αS) oligomers, crucial for initiating amyloidogenesis, remain largely uncharacterized.

Modelling the impact and cost-effectiveness of upcoming Zika virus vaccines on congenital Zika syndrome.

Background: Zika virus (ZIKV) continues to circulate in Southeast Asia following the 2015-2016 global epidemic, posing an ongoing risk of importation and disease spread for Singapore, a tropical city-state in the region. The virus remains a threat to pregnant women and their fetuses due to the risk of Congenital Zika Syndrome (CZS). Vaccines currently in development offer hope for reducing ZIKV infections and CZS cases.

Versatile adhesive skin enhances robotic interactions with the environment.

Electronic skins endow robots with sensory functions but often lack the multifunctionality of natural skin, such as switchable adhesion. Current smart adhesives based on elastomers have limited adhesion tunability, which hinders their effective use for both carrying heavy loads and performing dexterous manipulations. Here, we report a versatile, one-size-fits-all robotic adhesive skin using shape memory polymers with tunable rubber-to-glass phase transitions.

Synthesis of Biomass-Based Linear Aliphatic Polyesters Based on Sebacic Acid and 1,18-Octadecanedioic Acid and Their Thermal Properties and Odd-Even Effect.

A series of biomass-based linear aliphatic polyesters are synthesized by combining sebacic acid (SA) (C10 diacid) and 1,18-octadecanedioic acid (OA) (C18 diacid) with a series of diols with varied alkyl chain lengths (C2 to C10 diols). SA and OA are obtainable from castor oil and palm oil, respectively. The reaction extent (polymerization extent) is high (≥96%) in all cases, and the number-average molecular weight (M) is 10 000-43 000 g mol after purification.