Specific Aspects Research Articles

Global Pipeline of Innovative Medicinal Products: A Narrative Review

SCIENTIFIC RELEVANCE. The rapid expansion of the range of medicines in the global pharmaceutical market determines the importance of periodically reviewing the range of innovative medicines and products at various stages of development.AIM. This study aimed to determine the main trends in the development of innovative medicines.DISCUSSION. This review presents information on the therapeutic effects and value of innovative medicinal products, outlines current approaches to their authorisation, and addresses the increase in their costs. The authors used information search, content analysis, and horizon scanning methods to prepare this narrative review. The review describes the global pharmaceutical pipeline for the second half of 2023, both generally and by specific aspects. The authors determined that over 21,000 pharmaceutical products were in development at the time, with approximately 23% of those in the later stages of development (from phase III clinical trials to the registration stage). The predominant indications for use were cancers. The authors separately reviewed innovations in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, as well as gene, cell, and RNA therapies.CONCLUSIONS. A significant number of innovative pipeline medicines have a high likelihood of changing the landscape of current approaches to disease treatment, prevention, and diagnosis. With the rising costs of innovative medicinal products, the potential for change underscores the importance of introducing predictive tools, such as horizon scanning, into the national healthcare system.

Mathematics anxiety and number processing: The link between executive functions, cardinality, and ordinality.

One important factor that hampers children's learning of mathematics is math anxiety (MA). Still, the mechanisms by which MA affects performance remain debated. The current study investigated the relationship between MA, basic number processing abilities (i.e., cardinality and ordinality processing), and executive functions in school children enrolled in grades 4-7 (N = 127). Children were divided into a high math anxiety group (N = 29) and a low math anxiety group (N = 31) based on the lowest quartile and the highest quartile. Using a series of analyses of variances, we find that highly math-anxious students do not perform worse on cardinality processing tasks (i.e., digit comparison and non-symbolic number sense), but that they perform worse on numerical and non-numerical ordinality processing tasks. We demonstrate that children with high MA show poorer performance on a specific aspect of executive functions-shifting ability. Our models indicate that shifting ability is tied to performance on both the numerical and non-numerical ordinality processing tasks. A central factor seems to be the involvement of executive processes during ordinality judgements, and executive functions may constitute the driving force behind these delays in numerical competence in math-anxious children.

Changes in mindfulness facets across yoga, CBT and stress education in individuals with generalized anxiety disorder

Improving mindfulness is an important treatment target for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). However, less is known about how different treatments impact specific aspects of mindfulness. In a clinical trial (Simon et al., 2021), 226 individuals with GAD were randomized to 12 weeks of Kundalini Yoga (KY), cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) or stress education (SE). To examine whether specific facets of mindfulness, as measured by the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ) change more than others across treatment and between treatments, we ran a multi-variate multilevel growth curve model (MMLM). Results indicated that while the Non-judge, Act with Awareness, and Non-react facets increased significantly during treatment, the Observe and Describe facets did not. Improvement in the Acting with Awareness facet during treatment was significantly greater for KY than CBT. These findings reveal the need to better understand how behavioral treatments can influence specific components of mindfulness for those with anxiety.

Facilitators and barriers to using telemedicine for gender-affirming care in gender-diverse youth: A qualitative study.

Access to gender-affirming care (GAC) is limited for gender-diverse (GD) youth, with the potential for further limitations given the current political climate. GAC has been shown to improve the mental health of GD youth and telemedicine (TM) could increase access to GAC. With limited data on the acceptability and feasibility of TM for GAC among GD youth, we sought to further explore their perspectives on the use of TM in their care. We used a semi-structured interview guide, with prompts developed to explore participants' knowledge of TM, identify factors that influenced use, and advantages or disadvantages of use. Thirty GD participants aged 13-21 years old participated in TM. While TM was not the preferred option for medical visits, it was recognized as a practical option for providing GAC. Various actual and perceived disadvantages noted by youth included, technical issues interrupting the visit, not receiving care equivalent to that of an in-person visit, having to see themselves on the screen, family members interrupting visits, and meeting new staff while connecting to a TM visit. The advantages, however, were an increased autonomy and convenience of TM, especially when used for specific aspects of GAC. The use of TM in GAC could be optimized by limiting camera use, eliminating/reducing staff involvement, being sensitive to privacy issues, and alternating TM with in-person visits. Clinicians should be cognizant of patient preferences and concerns and be flexible with visit types.

Examining the Process and Impact of Social Problem Solving in Autistic Children.

Social problem solving (SPS) represents a social cognitive reasoning process that gives way to behavior when individuals are navigating challenging social situations. Autistic individuals have been shown to struggle with specific aspects of SPS, which, in turn, has been related to social difficulties in children. However, no previous work has measured how SPS components not only relate to one another but also discretely and conjointly predict autism-related symptoms and social difficulties in autistic children, specifically. Fifty-eight autistic children (44 male; 6-10 years old, Mage=8.67, SDage=1.31) completed a self-administered, computerized assessment of SPS. To elucidate how SPS components discretely, and combined, contribute to autism-related symptoms and social difficulties, commonality analyses were conducted for each measure assessing autism-related symptoms and social difficulties. Socially normative problem identification, goal preference, and solution preference were related to fewer parent-reported autism-related social difficulties. Measures related to autism symptomatology, social perspective taking, and emotion recognition were not significantly associated with discrete SPS components in this sample. The problem identification aspect of SPS contributed the most unique variance to parent-reported autism-related social difficulties, while shared variance across all SPS components accounted for substantial variance in both parent-reported autism-related social difficulties models. Results suggest that SPS components are interrelated, but distinct, constructs in the autistic population. These findings not only further clarify the impact of SPS components on autism-related symptoms and social difficulties, but also have implications for refining SPS-focused interventions in the autistic population.

Challenges in moderating disruptive player behavior in online competitive action games

Online competitive action games are a very popular form of entertainment. While most are respectfully enjoyed by millions of players, a small group of players engages in disruptive behavior, such as cheating and hate speech. Identifying and subsequently moderating these toxic players is a challenging task. Previous research has only studied specific aspects of this problem using curated data and with limited access to real-world moderation practices. In contrast, our work offers a unique and holistic view of the universal challenges of moderating disruptive behavior in online systems. We combine an analysis of a large dataset from a popular online competitive first-person action title (Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare®II) with insights from stakeholders involved in moderation. We identify six universal challenges related to handling disruptive behaviors in such games. We discuss challenges omitted by prior work, such as handling high-volume imbalanced data or ensuring the comfort of human moderators. We also offer a discussion of possible technical, design, and policy approaches to mitigating these challenges.

Incorporating syntax and semantics with dual graph neural networks for aspect-level sentiment analysis

Aspect-level sentiment analysis is a more fine-grained task that aims to determine the sentiment polarity of specific aspects. Recent studies have employed graph attention networks and graph convolutional networks to model dependency trees, effectively establishing explicit associations between aspects and opinions, yielding promising performance. However, these methods have limitations in capturing complex linguistic features and the intricate dependencies between aspects and their contexts, resulting in suboptimal performance. In this paper, we propose a dual graph neural network that incorporates syntax and semantics, called IDGNN. Specifically, we utilize the relational graph attention network (RGAT) to encode the syntactic dependency tree and obtain syntactic information, while incorporating dependency labels to enhance aspect representation. Additionally, the semantic graph convolutional network (SemGCN) is employed to encode the self-attention matrix and capture semantic information, with the inclusion of orthogonal regularization to enhance semantic association. Furthermore, we introduce two fusion strategies based on gate mechanisms: the syntax fusion module (SYF) and the semantic fusion module (SEF). SYF combines contextual and syntactic representations to obtain global syntactic features, while SEF fuses semantic information with global syntactic features to obtain the final feature representation. Experimental results demonstrate that our proposed model achieves state-of-the-art performance on several benchmark datasets.

Innate and adaptive immune responses in the intestine of camel (Camelus dromedarius) naturally infected with Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis.

The spread of John's disease in camel herds (Camelus dromedarius) has been worldwide reported. Despite extensive studies on Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP) infection in camels, the complete pathogenesis and epidemiology of this infection have not been fully exploited. The objective of the study is focusing on the nature of the immune responses, and the types of the recruited cells were studied in the intestine of naturally infected camels employing immunohistochemistry to analyze the expression of CD335, CD103, CD11b, and CD38 markers. Marked expression of some or all of the markers was observed in the ileum, mesenteric, and supramammary lymph nodes of the old infected camels. The expression of CD335, a well-known natural killer (NK) cell marker, was detected in the mesenteric lymph node, while the dendritic cell (DCs) marker, CD103, was markedly expressed in the villi and propria submucosa (PS) of the ileum in old infected camels. CD103 + and CD11b + DCs were detected in the mesenteric lymph nodes of young infected camels. The expression of CD38, a crucial proinflammatory marker, was more noticeable in the peripheral region of the mesenteric lymph node. The expression of these markers in the infected camel intestine was peculiar and is reported for the first time. In summary, the unique expression patterns of CD335, CD103, CD11b, and CD38 markers in naturally infected camel intestines revealed through immunohistochemistry new insights into the immune responses associated with MAP infection. These first-time observations suggest potential roles of innate and adaptive immunity, highlighting specific aspects of MAP immunopathology. Further studies with targeted tools are crucial for a precise understanding of these markers' roles in the infected intestines.

Understanding patient and family utilisation of community-based palliative care services out-of-hours: Additional analysis of systematic review evidence using narrative synthesis.

Community-based out-of-hours services are an integral component of end-of-life care. However, there is little understanding of how patients and families utilise these services. This additional analysis of a systematic review aims to understand and identify patterns of out-of-hours service use and produce recommendations for future service design. Data on service use was extracted and secondary analysis undertaken, from a systematic review of models of community out-of-hours services. Narrative synthesis was completed, addressing four specific aspects of service use: 1.Times when patients/families/healthcare professionals need to contact out-of-hours services; 2. Who contacts out-of-hours services; 3. Whether a telephone call, centre visit or home visit is provided; 4. Who responds to out-of-hours calls. Community-based out-of-hours palliative care services were most often accessed between 5pm and midnight, especially on weekdays (with reports of 69% of all calls being made out-of-hours). Family members and carers were the most frequent callers to of the services (making between 60% and 80% of all calls). The type of contact (telephone, centre visit or home visit) varied based on what was offered and on patient need. Over half of services were led by a single discipline (nurse). Out-of-hours services are highly used up to midnight, and particularly by patients' family and carers. Recommendations to commissioners and service providers are to: • Increase provision of out-of-hours services between 5pm and midnight to reflect the increased use at these times. • Ensure that family and carers are provided with clear contact details for out-of-hours support. • Ensure patient records can be easily accessed by health professionals responding to calls, making the triage process easier. • Listen to patients, family and carers in the design of out-of-hours services, including telephone services. • Collect data systematically on out-of-hours-service use and on outcomes for patients who use the service.

Graph Convolutional Network with Syntactic Dependency for Aspect-Based Sentiment Analysis

AbstractAspect-based sentiment analysis (ABSA) aims to mine the sentiment tendencies expressed by specific aspect terms. The studies of ABSA mainly focus on the attention-based approaches and the graph neural network approaches based on dependency trees. However, the attention-based methods usually face difficulties in capturing long-distance syntactic dependencies. Additionally, existing approaches using graph neural networks have not made sufficient exploit the syntactic dependencies among aspects and opinions. In this paper, we propose a novel Syntactic Dependency Graph Convolutional Network (SD-GCN) model for ABSA. We employ the Biaffine Attention to model the sentence syntactic dependencies and build syntactic dependency graphs from aspects and emotional words. This allows our SD-GCN to learn both the semantic relationships of aspects and the overall semantic meaning. According to these graphs, the long-distance syntactic dependency relationships are captured by GCNs, which facilitates SD-GCN to capture the syntactic dependencies between aspects and viewpoints more comprehensively, and consequently yields enhanced aspect features. We conduct extensive experiments on four aspect-level sentiment datasets. The experimental results show that our SD-GCN outperforms other methodologies. Moreover, ablation experiments and visualization of attention further substantiate the effectiveness of SD-GCN.

The master’s degree in development practice: a case study of twelve university programs

Sustainable development is a global priority. However, a lack of research exists on the programs designed to train sustainable development practitioners. This multi-case case study, possibly the first to describe the programs that trains development practitioners, utilized case study theory and semi-structured interviews with program administrators to describe sustainable development programs offered by 12 higher education institutions in eight countries with membership in the Global Association of Masters in Development Practice. The results revealed five themes or key drivers, nine advantages, and four deficiencies. Two drivers were enrollment-focused (admission of students with prior work experience in development and financial support), two were curriculum-focused (incorporation of field work and integration of specific knowledge aspects and skills training in the curricula), and one was institutional attitude (adoption of a culture of flexibility). The most common challenges were impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic. These results provide insights for continuous improvement efforts of program administrators for students in sustainable development. The practical methodology developed can be replicated and adapted for investigation of similar programs and other disciplines in higher education.

Craft making: Traditional and creative trajectories in Jingdezhen, China

Debates surrounding craft‐making have long centred on the intricate relationship among the head, hand and the materials. While studies have typically differentiated between traditional craft and creative crafts by focusing on specific aspect of the relationship, the co‐existence and interdependence of these elements remained largely unexplored. This research focuses on ceramic craft making in Jingdezhen, where traditional and creative crafts coexist. We employ ethnographic research to comprehend the connotation of traditional and creative crafts, examining them from the perspectives of engagement and detachment. In doing so, this study challenges oversimplified narratives that undervalue the making role of traditional craft and position creative craft as a means for self‐expression and resistance against alienation. Instead, we emphasise the complex relationship between the two, characterised by mutual dependence and mutual detriment. These findings partly stem from the predominance of detachment in traditional crafts, which prioritise the act of making and, to some extent, maximising efficiency. They also relate to the prevalence of engagement in creative craft, where the pursuit of creativity is supported by traditional crafts.

Untangling the link between experiential avoidance and non-suicidal self-injury: a multidimensional approach

ABSTRACT Objective Experiential avoidance, an individual’s unwillingness to experience uncomfortable internal feelings/emotions, has been found to be associated with history of self-injury. This association is mainly found in studies that use global measures of experiential avoidance. However, experiential avoidance is purported to be a multidimensional construct. This study aims to test both unidimensional and multidimensional measures of experiential avoidance and their associations with self-injury. Method University students (n = 632, M = 25.01, SD = 7.13, 78.8% female, 70.9% with lived experience of self-injury) completed well-validated self-report measures of self-injury, experiential avoidance (The Brief and the Multidimensional Experiential Avoidance Questionnaire). Results As expected, all sub-scales of multidimensional measure of experiential avoidance were highly correlated with the global score for experiential avoidance. The global measure of experiential avoidance differentiated individuals with no history, with past history, and recent history of self-injury. When assessed using the multidimensional measure, only the sub-factors behavioural avoidance and repression and denial differentiated those with no history of self-injury from those with recent history and those with recent history from those with past history of self-injury. Conclusion Findings raise the possibility that associations between experiential avoidance and self-injury may be down to two specific aspects of experiential avoidance, namely 1) behavioural avoidance and 2) repression/denial. If true, this will have important theoretical, clinical, and measurement implications for research into self-injury.

Beginning Literacy as the Object of Study of Language and Literature Teaching Research, from an Ethnographic Perspective: Contributions to Teacher Training and the Teaching Work

This article presents the concepts and fundamentals of the lines of research on Language and Literature teaching from an ethnographic perspective, which we have been conducting in Argentina. Currently, these lines of research are being carried out at Universidad Pedagógica Nacional and focus on continuous teacher training distance learning, specifically addressing the challenges that affect Beginning Literacy in our country. The article explores how teachers describe their teaching experiences regarding the reproduction of educational slogans from the approaches that have guided curriculum designs and teacher training over the last four decades. It also presents how teachers produce other meanings regarding specific aspects overlooked by such reproduction. In this regard, the meanings through which teachers describe the challenges that their students face in mastering written language are defined and analyzed. Teachers sometimes do not know how to address these difficulties, as they have not been introduced to linguistic perspectives related to the distinctive features of Beginning Literacy.

Academic Solidarity in the Wake of Disaster: Blueprint for an Online Writing Support Group

ABSTRACTThis article develops a blueprint for creating online writing groups (OWGs) to support scholars who are directly and indirectly affected by disaster. Those who are living in regions affected by natural disasters face a severe psychological toll along with physical and logistical challenges. Furthermore, scholars in the diaspora who are watching their colleagues go about daily life while they struggle to meet writing deadlines can also experience detrimental psychological effects, including isolation anxiety. Findings from disaster studies research suggest that communal coping strategies can mitigate the short- and long-term challenges to mental health, including spiraling concerns about productivity that, in turn, inhibit productivity. My research builds on these studies, as well as analyses of virtual platforms used during the COVID-19 pandemic, to identify specific aspects of OWGs that can provide community and structure for scholars in the wake of natural disasters. I draw from my experience of creating and hosting a Zoom writing group for scholars from Turkey and Syria in the aftermath of the February 2023 earthquakes. In addition to participant observation of more than 240 two-hour sessions held over 42 weeks between March and December 2023, I draw from a survey-based assessment and email correspondence with participants to develop a best-practices model that I hope other scholars will replicate.

Distinct functional constraints driving conservation of the cofilin N-terminal regulatory tail

Cofilin family proteins have essential roles in remodeling the cytoskeleton through filamentous actin depolymerization and severing. The short, unstructured N-terminal region of cofilin is critical for actin binding and harbors the major site of inhibitory phosphorylation. Atypically for a disordered sequence, the N-terminal region is highly conserved, but specific aspects driving this conservation are unclear. Here, we screen a library of 16,000 human cofilin N-terminal sequence variants for their capacity to support growth in S. cerevisiae in the presence or absence of the upstream regulator LIM kinase. Results from the screen and biochemical analysis of individual variants reveal distinct sequence requirements for actin binding and regulation by LIM kinase. LIM kinase recognition only partly explains sequence constraints on phosphoregulation, which are instead driven to a large extent by the capacity for phosphorylation to inactivate cofilin. We find loose sequence requirements for actin binding and phosphoinhibition, but collectively they restrict the N-terminus to sequences found in natural cofilins. Our results illustrate how a phosphorylation site can balance potentially competing sequence requirements for function and regulation.

Confronting Confederate Monuments: Place-Based Pedagogy for Anti-Racist Preaching

“Space wins” is a long-held homiletical maxim. Usually, this means that architecture and pulpit style influence how sermons are delivered and heard. What is less frequently considered is how monuments and memorials affect proclamation in space. Among other things, Confederate monuments make claims on space, communicate idealized aesthetics, and preach about hopes for a particular eschatological community. This essay examines pedagogical approaches to preaching that confronts Confederate monuments. It is based upon courses I offered in 2022 at The University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, and through the Association of Chicago Theological Schools D.Min. program in Chicago, Illinois. After articulating a pedagogy drawn from the work of Leonora Tubbs Tisdale and Willie James Jennings, I examine three approaches to place-based pedagogy that serve anti-racist preaching by (1) analyzing monuments within the teaching location, (2) fostering reflective participation in pilgrimage to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, and (3) inviting students to research monuments in their home community and confront them through preaching. These approaches can foster preaching that is better attuned to addressing localized histories, better able to identify and confront specific aspects of white supremacy that are concretized in a community, and more adept at offering a gospel proclamation that is finely tuned to the transformative needs of a particular place.

The role of priming and memory in rice environmental stress adaptation: Current knowledge and perspectives.

Plant responses to abiotic stresses are dynamic, following the unpredictable changes of physical environmental parameters such as temperature, water and nutrients. Physiological and phenotypical responses to stress are intercalated by periods of recovery. An earlier stress can be remembered as 'stress memory' to mount a response within a generation or transgenerationally. The 'stress priming' phenomenon allows plants to respond quickly and more robustly to stressors to increase survival, and therefore has significant implications for agriculture. Although evidence for stress memory in various plant species is accumulating, understanding of the mechanisms implicated, especially for crops of agricultural interest, is in its infancy. Rice is a major food crop which is susceptible to abiotic stresses causing constraints on its cultivation and yield globally. Advancing the understanding of the stress response network will thus have a significant impact on rice sustainable production and global food security in the face of climate change. Therefore, this review highlights the effects of priming on rice abiotic stress tolerance and focuses on specific aspects of stress memory, its perpetuation and its regulation at epigenetic, transcriptional, metabolic as well as physiological levels. The open questions and future directions in this exciting research field are also laid out.

Aspects of Synodality in Recent Catechetical Documents: The Directory for Catechesis and Antiquum Ministerium

This article seeks to draw out the implications of synodality as journeying together in some aspects of the Directory for Catechesis (2020) and of Antiquum Ministerium (2021). These notions of syno­dality cannot be fished out of these documents in an immediate way. The method which will be adopted is a bibliographical one where several texts will be analysed. The first part will seek to give a working definition of synodality. For a balanced view, this will be supplemented by some difficulties in synodality today. This will be followed by a very brief outline of how catechesis changed as a result of the Second Vatican Council. The Directory for Catechesis and Antiquum Ministerium will then be presented in terms of contents within them which point at or call for synodality. Finally, specific aspects of the contents of these two documents will be studied in view of their practical implications to catechesis in the contem­porary secularised world, namely synodality within the structures of the Church entrusted with cateche­sis; accompaniment; listening and speaking, and discernment.

Employer Branding to Improve Employee Loyalty after a Business Merger in PT Pelindo Terminal Petikemas

In today’s world, solid employer branding is important for any company or organization. Ambler & Barrow (1996) defined employer branding as the process of building and promoting a company’s reputation as an employer. Ilyas et al. (2020) stated that employer branding has a strong positive relationship with employee loyalty and the extent to which employees are committed to their organization and its goals. When a business goes through a merger, employee loyalty becomes an important factor in ensuring the company’s productivity, which is something that PT Pelindo Terminal Petikemas and some other Indonesian State-Owned Enterprises have gone through in recent years. The primary research objective of this study is to identify the specific aspects of employer branding that can be prioritized by PT Pelindo Terminal Petikemas to enhance employee loyalty. The methodology used is primarily quantitative research with correlational analysis as the statistical model, however, additional qualitative data was also collected and analyzed. The primary data were acquired through an online questionnaire given to the employees of PT Pelindo Terminal Petikemas. This study concludes that employer branding and employee loyalty have a strong positive significant correlation. Furthermore, it was also found that the employer branding dimensions with the strongest correlation with employee loyalty are organizational culture, ethics and corporate social responsibility, and diversity. PT Pelindo Terminal Petikemas can focus on improving the organizational culture, ethics and corporate social responsibility, and diversity aspects of employer branding to improve employee loyalty. The research also provides actionable solutions for PT Pelindo Terminal Petikemas to further strengthen its employer branding and improve employee loyalty.