Purpose The aim of the study was to examine the reliability and validity of the Groningen Meander Walk Test (GMWT). Materials and Methods Forty-six people with Parkinson’s disease (PwPD) and 32 controls were included. Reliability was determined using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) and the minimal detectable change (MDC). Correlations between the completion time (CT) and overstep score (OS) of the GMWT and the other balance and disease severity specific tools were used to assess validity. The CT and OS of the GMWT were also compared between fallers and non-fallers among PwPD. Results The GMWT times demonstrated excellent test-retest reliability (ICC = 0.964) while overstep scores had good test-retest reliability (ICC = 0.757). The MDC was 1.72 s for CT and 1.64 s for OS. The CT of the GMWT showed moderate to strong correlations with the other measures (correlation coefficients ranged from 0.530 to 0.847, p < 0.05 for all), while the OS showed fair to moderate correlations (correlation coefficients ranged from −0.361 to 0.660, p < 0.05 for all). Significant differences in the GMWT were found between PwPD and healthy controls and between fallers and non-fallers with PwPD (p < 0.05). Conclusion The GMWT is a reliable and valid tool for quantifying the advanced walking skills of PwPD. Implications for Rehabilitation The Groningen Meander Walk Test is a reliable, valid, and easy-to-administer clinical assessment tool in people with Parkinson’s disease. The Groningen Meander Walk Test can be used for assessing advanced walking ability in people with Parkinson’s disease. The Groningen Meander Walk Test can detect fallers and freezers with Parkinson’s disease.

Nutrition literacy is a person's ability to gain, retain and use nutrition information to inform healthy lifestyle choices. Low nutrition literacy (NL) can limit understanding of nutrition information and how it is subsequently applied, impacting the quality of a person's diet. Malnutrition and poor diet quality are linked to many cancers and/or treatment recovery. Measuring NL, using culturally adapted and validated tools, may support improved understanding of nutrition education needs for more people with cancer. However, no validated NL measure exists for adults with cancer in the United Kingdom (UK). This study undertook cultural and linguistic adaptations of an NL instrument (NLit) for use in UK adults with cancer. The study was approved by UK ethics and regulatory authorities. NLit, was culturally adapted (NLit-UK) following guideline review, expert recommendation, and two patient nominal consensus groups. NLit-UK was then validated in an observational cross-sectional study of on-treatment adults with cancer. NLit-UK, Newest Vital Signs (NVS-UK), demographic information and consent, were collected anonymously via an online platform between June 2019 and March 2020, the target sample size was 366. Qualitative data were thematically analysed. Quantitative data were presented using descriptive statistics. Construct validity was determined using single factor classical confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Seven experts and 16 service users took part in cultural and linguistic adaptations. Key adaptations included UK to US language, images, food label policy and numeracy progression. Answer formats, purpose and concepts remained consistent. Forty-two people with cancer completed NLit-UK (63-item), recruitment terminated early due to COVID. CFA on NLit-UK (63-item) and its shorter (42-item) version showed substantial reliability (entire reliability, 0.90; Cronbachs α 0.83) and good reliability (entire reliability, 0.86; Cronbachs α, 0.8), respectively. While NVS-UK identified 71.8% (n = 28) as having adequate health literacy, only 10% (n = 4) were identified as having adequate NL. Content reliability and validity of NLit-UK was excellent. The small sample size prohibited CFA between subscales or associations between NL and potential confounders such as ethnicity and educational status. Confirmation in a larger more diverse population and other conditions is warranted. Adequate health literacy may not predict adequate NL. NCT03978312 www. gov.

With the rapid expansion of digital learning in education, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have emerged as valuable platforms for enhancing access and quality in teacher education. This study investigates the perception of secondary grade prospective teachers towards MOOCs, with a focus on how gender and academic stream influence these perceptions. The study employed a quantitative cross-sectional survey research design. A total of 259 B.Ed. students from Mysore were selected using a stratified random sampling technique and surveyed using a validated 30-item perception scale covering five domains: study habits, learning outcomes, benefits and accessibility, usability and experience, and multimedia and resource sharing. The instrument demonstrated good reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.843). The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and independent samples t-tests followed by Cohen’s d for effect size. Results indicated that a majority of participants (79.9%) held a moderate perception of MOOCs. While gender differences in overall perception were not statistically significant, female participants rated higher in benefits and multimedia-related domains. Science stream students exhibited significantly more positive perceptions across multiple dimensions compared to their humanities counterparts. The findings suggest integrating structured MOOC orientation within B.Ed. programs, curricular integration of platforms such as SWAYAM for supplementary learning, and institutional initiatives to strengthen the digital competencies of prospective teachers for effective engagement with online learning environments.

There are various tests to assess the individual performance of mastication. However, it has remained unknown how individuals used adaptive (e.g., 'increasing time to chew') and maladaptive (e.g., 'avoiding eating the food') strategies to chew and whether aging/cognitive impairment plays a key role in the use of these strategies during eating. The study aims to develop the Masticatory Adaptation Experience Questionnaire (MAEQ) and investigate age-related factors of masticatory adaptation. The study consists of two subsets: Set 1 included 125 healthy younger (YA, 20-50 years) and older (OA, over 50 years) adults, and Set 2 included 40 older patients with cognitive impairment (CI). Based on Set 1, internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and content and criterion-related validity were assessed. Eating difficulty was assessed using a food-specific questionnaire. The MAEQ mean score and scores for each adaptive/maladaptive strategy were compared between YAs and OAs, as well as between CIs and OAs. The MAEQ, a questionnaire assessing the frequency of using adaptive/maladaptive strategies to eat, shows good reliability and validity in older adults. Compared to young adults, older adults used multiple adaptive and maladaptive strategies concurrently when they had greater eating difficulty. In contrast, cognitively-impaired patients maladaptively avoid eating foods when having greater eating difficulty. The MAEQ is a valid tool for assessing the use of adaptive/maladaptive strategies during mastication in older individuals. Age and cognitive impairment may play a key role in the use of the strategies.

Reinvestment Theory proposes that excessive conscious control over movement execution or decision making can disrupt automaticity and contribute to performance breakdown under pressure. Despite its clinical relevance in sport psychology, culturally validated measures of reinvestment remain limited. This study examined the psychometric properties of adapted versions of the Decision-Specific Reinvestment Scale (DSRS) and Movement-Specific Reinvestment Scale (MSRS) in a sample of athletes and physically active individuals. Participants were 259 undergraduate sport science students (Mage = 20.34 years). Data were analyzed using item discrimination indices, confirmatory factor analyses, convergent validity tests, and internal consistency estimates. Item-level analyses supported the removal of one item from each scale. The resulting DSRS comprised 12 items across two factors (decision reinvestment and decision rumination), and the MSRS comprised nine items across two factors (conscious motor processing and movement self-consciousness). Both scales demonstrated acceptable to good reliability and evidence of factorial and convergent validity. These findings support the use of the adapted DSRS and MSRS as clinically informative tools for assessing vulnerability to performance disruptions under pressure in sport and performance settings.

Research suggests that the quality of mother–infant bonding (MIB) is a critical factor for long-term infant development. This study aimed to culturally adapt and psychometrically validate the Mother–to-Infant Bonding Scale (MIBS) for use among Greek mothers. Methods: A total of 750 mothers (Mage = 33.6 ± 4.6) with infants aged 0–12 months completed the MIBS and the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale. The sample was randomly split to conduct exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses (EFA/CFA). Results: Analyses supported a unidimensional structure after removal of the ‘protective’ item. The MIBS demonstrated good reliability and convergent validity against the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS). Discussion: MIBS is a reliable and valid tool to assess bonding in a general population of Greek mothers up to one year postpartum. Future studies should examine the structure of MIBS in different timepoints during the postpartum period. The MIBS appears to be a reliable screening instrument for early identification of bonding difficulties.

Reliability of Radiographic Parameters in the Evaluation of Scapholunate Dissociation.

Development and validation of a social isolation assessment scale for older adults with chronic diseases.

Cancer survivorship begins at diagnosis. Transition expectation is a key modifiable factor that shapes adolescents' movement from adolescence to adult care and is a prerequisite for successful transition and better survival outcomes. This study aimed to translate the Transition Expectation Scale (TES) into Chinese (TES-CN) and address its psychometric properties in pediatric cancer survivors (PCSs). We used a two-phase design. First, the TES was translated and culturally adapted into Chinese in accordance with guidelines. Second, a cross-sectional psychometric evaluation was conducted in a convenience sample of Chinese PCSs. Reliability and validity were examined. Two hundred and seventeen PCSs were recruited for psychometric evaluation. The Content validity of the TES-CN was satisfactory, with a scale-level content validity index of 0.91 and an item-level content validity index ranging from 0.78 to 1.00. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported an 11-item, three-factor structure explaining 64.3% of the variance. Compared to the original single-factor structure, the three-factor model demonstrated a better fit (Δχ2=116.58, Δdf=13, p<0.001). The convergent and discriminant validity results also jointly indicated that the three constructs were empirically distinct, and the model exhibited satisfactory construct validity. The TES-CN had good reliability, with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.89 and test-retest coefficients ranging from 0.60 to 0.94, indicating acceptable to excellent temporal stability. The TES-CN is a reliable and valid tool for assessing transition expectations among Chinese PCSs and can be used in Chinese research and clinical settings.

Nurses' willingness and demand for providing Internet+home care services in the elderly with disabilities or dementia and the associated factors in provincial hospitals in China: A cross-sectional study.

Multifaceted-optimization on PtFeCoNiMnX high entropy alloy confined in macroporous carbon fibers towards superior oxygen catalysis.

Methods used to identify and classify medication-related admissions and readmissions to hospitals: A systematic review.

Idiosyncratic DILI is a complex clinical challenge requiring timely and accurate decision support. LiverTox, curated by the National Institute of Health (NIH), offers a comprehensive DILI evidence base, but its encyclopedia-like format hinders point-of-care use. Health care providers increasingly use general large language models (LLMs) for clinical care, raising safety concerns due to LLM hallucinations or misinformation. We hypothesize that retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) integration-grounding LLM responses in LiverTox content-would enable accurate DILI decision support. We processed 1343 LiverTox drug monographs into 8759 indexed segments using BioBERT embeddings. We developed a RAG pipeline that employs drug-specific prioritization, section-aware weighting, and semantic search to retrieve the most relevant content per query. Twenty-five DILI questions were evaluated across 6 models: 4 RAG-LLMs: Mistral-7B, Claude-3-Haiku, Claude-3-Opus, and GPT-4o, and 2 non-RAG GPT-4o variants (unconstrained; soft constrained with a prompt to reference LiverTox). Three hepatologists, blinded to the model, evaluated responses for accuracy, completeness, and conciseness using 5-point Likert scales. Analyses included pairwise comparisons and effect size estimation. One hundred fifty model responses were evaluated with good inter-rater reliability. GPT-4o (RAG) achieved the highest overall scores (4.47±0.10). RAG-LLMs outperformed non-RAG GPT-4o variants in accuracy (p<0.001) and completeness (p<0.01). Moderate to large effect sizes in accuracy (d=0.778) and completeness (d=0.526) were noted with RAG. No hallucinations were observed in RAG-LLM outputs, while both non-RAG GPT-4o variants produced several hallucinated responses. There were no significant differences in scoring or hallucinated response rate between the 2 non-RAG variants. We developed an RAG-LLM integrated with LiverTox for evidence-based DILI management. RAG-LLM systems outperformed non-RAG variants and produced responses without observed hallucinations in this evaluation. Our LiverTox RAG-LLM enables reliable answers to drug hepatotoxicity questions at the point of care.

The present study aimed to investigate the associations between ultrasonographic measurements of the geniohyoid muscle and clinical screening indicators of sarcopenia, dysphagia, and physical performance in older adults. This study provides the first known sono-elastographic evaluation of the geniohyoid muscle in relation to sarcopenia and swallowing dysfunction in older adults. Thirty independently living individuals aged ≥65years were included. Sarcopenia and dysphagia risk were assessed using the SARC-F and EAT-10 questionnaires, respectively. Physical performance was evaluated with the five times sit-to-stand test (5-STS). Ultrasonographic assessments of the geniohyoid muscle were performed using a high frequency linear transducer. Cross sectional area (CSA), perimeter and elasticity of the geniohyoid muscle were measured on B-mode images. CSA and perimeter were negatively correlated with SARC-F and EAT-10 scores (p<0.05). In addition, 5-STS showed a significant negative correlation with CSA (p<0.05). Female participants had significantly lower CSA and perimeter and higher sarcopenia and dysphagia risk scores (p<0.05). No statistically significant associations were found between geniohyoid muscle elasticity and the clinical parameters (p>0.05). Intraobserver reliability for elasticity was assessed in a subsample (n=15), yielding an ICC of 0.82. CSA and the perimeter of the geniohyoid muscle were significantly associated with sarcopenia risk, dysphagia risk, and physical performance scores. Although not statistically associated with clinical screening indicators, geniohyoid muscle elasticity was successfully measured using strain elastography, demonstrating good intraobserver reliability. Ultrasonography appears to be a practical and reproducible tool for evaluating geniohyoid muscle structure in older adults, although further validation is needed.

The single-leg sit-to-stand test is valid and reliable for assessing lower limb performance and asymmetry in international cross-country skiers.

Reliability and stability of pain ratings and secondary hyperalgesia to experimental phasic heat pain across multiple days and weeks.

Understanding hydrological, agricultural, and environmental processes in soils relies on accurately measuring volumetric water content (θ), matric potential (h), and hydraulic conductivity (K). These parameters are fundamental for quantifying plant-available water, optimizing irrigation scheduling in precision agriculture, modeling watershed responses, and studying the impacts of climate change in complex ecosystems. Among these parameters, θ is truly indispensable, as it represents the primary indicator of the water status of soils and a prerequisite for interpreting the other hydraulic variables. In recent years, capacitive sensors have become one of the most widely adopted technologies for θ estimation, owing to their favorable balance between accuracy, robustness, and affordability. These sensors infer soil moisture by measuring dielectric permittivity of soils, which is strongly governed by water content, making them particularly suitable for distributed monitoring and IoT-based environmental applications. The present study aimed to develop a low-cost capacitive sensor for θ estimation. This sensor can be made using 3D printing technology combined with conductive, nickel-based paint, which (once applied on the 3D-printed guides) forms the capacitive electrode. The capacitive component operates at an operational frequency of 60 MHz. The system was subjected to a rigorous testing protocol, including calibration and validation phases under laboratory conditions using three soils of different textures. Its performance was specifically compared with the time-domain reflectometry (TDR) technique, which is widely recognized in Soil Physics and Soil Hydrology as the reference method for θ estimation due to its reliability and accuracy. These tests confirmed the effective performance of the proposed sensor, which overall exhibited good reliability within the selected validation range, corresponding to a θ range of 0 to 0.40 cm3/cm3.

Abstract Purpose To develop a new comprehensive vision-related low luminance performance-based measure, the ‘Assessment of Low Luminance Vision-Related Activities’ (ALLVA), and evaluate its construct validity and test-retest reliability using Rasch analysis. Methods A cross-sectional observational study of 75 adults with vision impairment from various ocular conditions (mean age 70 years [SD: 15 years]; mean binocular visual acuity 0.63 logMAR [SD: 0.45 logMAR]) was conducted. Seventeen tasks were developed as items and administered to participants under low luminance, with completion time and number of errors recorded. As some items could not be completed by all participants, five categories of completion time were created for analysis (quartiles and a fifth category representing non-completion). The ‘method of successive dichotomisations’—a polytomous Rasch model that always estimates ordered response category thresholds, enabling its application to binned continuous data—was applied to create a single combined measure of performance. Errors were not analysed as they occurred infrequently and generally increased completion time. Eleven participants with age-related macular degeneration were retested after 2–4 weeks. Clinical vision measures, including visual acuity, contrast sensitivity and visual fields, were also collected. Results Initial analysis of the 17-task ALLVA led to removal of one item, walking a mobility course, due to infit and outfit mean square statistics being outside the acceptable range. For the remaining 16 tasks, item difficulty was well targeted to person ability, with only a minor floor effect. Item and person reliability values were 0.98 and 0.93, respectively. Clinical vision measures were significantly correlated with person measures. Bland–Altman analysis indicated a mean difference between test and retest person measures of −0.08 logits (95% limits of agreement 2.16 to −2.32 logits). Conclusion The ALLVA is the first comprehensive vision-related low luminance performance-based measure. It demonstrated strong Rasch psychometric properties, validity and good test-retest reliability.

Background: Depression is a major mental health disorder with a significant global impact. Early detection through valid and reliable screening instruments, such as the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS), plays a crucial role in its prevention and management. Objective: This review aims to evaluate the psychometric properties of the EPDS, focusing on its reliability and validity in detecting depressive symptoms. Methods: This study is a systematic review of scientific articles identified through three major databases: ScienceDirect, PubMed, and ProQuest. The literature search covered publications from 2021 to 2025 using a combination of the keywords “Depression,” “Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale,” “Mental Health,” “Psychometrics,” “Postpartum,” and “Pregnancy,” with Boolean operators AND and OR to retrieve studies relevant to the validity and reliability of EPDS. Article selection was conducted using the PRISMA framework, with predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria. From a total of 337 articles identified, 20 were selected for further analysis. Results: The findings indicate that the EPDS demonstrates good internal reliability and adequate validity in detecting depressive symptoms. Conclusion: EPDS is a reliable screening instrument for detecting perinatal depression, with its consistency maintained through linguistic and cultural adaptations

Abstract Introduction Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a systemic autoimmune synovial condition with a fairly high prevalence. One of the diagnostic criteria for RA involves radiological parameters; however, no consensus has been reached for ultrasound (US) criteria. This study aims to examine the relationship between the DAS28 clinical score, rheumatoid factor (RF), and anti-CCP levels with the US10 scoring in early RA. Objective This study aims to determine the association between DAS28 clinical score, rheumatoid factor, anti-CCP levels and ultrasonography score using US10 manus and wrist scores in early rheumatoid arthritis. Methods 60 patients with early RA underwent clinical and laboratory evaluations to assess DAS28 scores, RF levels, and anti-CCP levels. US examinations of the hands were conducted by two blinded radiologists using the US10 scoring guidelines, which assess inflammation and joint damage parameters. Analyses with a p -value &lt; 0.05 were considered significant. Result The US10 examination demonstrated good reliability. The US10 score was significantly associated with the DAS28 score ( p = 0.009; r = 0.335) but not with anti-CCP levels ( p = 0.110). The inflammation parameters of the US10 score were significantly correlated with RF and anti-CCP levels ( p &lt; 0.05). Conclusion The US10 scoring system plays a role in detecting and evaluating inflammatory conditions and joint damage in patients with early RA, as indicated by its correlation with clinical and laboratory findings.