Topic Scope Research Articles

A year of rapid reviews: evidence-based decision support for Austrian social insurances & hospitals

Abstract Background The Austrian Institute for Health Technology Assessment (AIHTA) has supported the decisions of Austrian social insurance funds and hospital providers with rapid reviews since 2023. This summary of rapid reviews aims to provide insights on findings, as well as experiences and challenges of conducting the rapid reviews after one year. Methods We included all rapid reviews that were requested to the AIHTA team in 2023. For research questions that were withdrawn, the reasoning was documented. The completed rapid reviews were grouped into medical specialties, depending on the intervention analysed. The conclusions of the rapid reviews were presented in tabular form, with the strength of the available evidence classified as high, moderate, low or insufficient. Results The rapid reviews on interventions (n = 9) cover a variety of medical specialties (orthopaedics, gynaecology, neurology, physical medicine, ophthalmology, vascular surgery and dermatology). In three rapid reviews, the analysed evidence on the intervention was insufficient for benefit (compared to standard of care). In four rapid reviews, the evidence indicated a potential benefit with some limitations (e.g. indication-specific results, or minimal clinically important difference not clearly achieved). In two rapid reviews, the evidence indicated a potential benefit. For three topics, no rapid review was conducted (topic scope too broad for rapid review, change in prioritisation). Challenges include time constraints, as well as narrowing the research questions to be suitable for rapid reviews. Conclusions The overview of rapid reviews highlights evidence-based findings on medical interventions. Further steps include collecting feedback from inquirers, on the extent to which the evidence from rapid reviews was used to support the decision-making. Rapid reviews are a feasible tool but require continuous evaluation and further adaptation of methods. Key messages • The rapid reviews to inform decision-making processes for Austrian social insurance funds and hospitals spanned multiple specialties and revealed varying levels of evidence. • To improve the implementation of rapid reviews, and to overcome challenges of time constraints and narrowing down research questions, feedback from stakeholders should be collected.

Scientometrics and visualized analysis of 3D food printing: A boost to future food customized development

There has been an exponential growth of research on three-dimensional food printing (3DFP) in recent years. In this study, scientometric and visual analyses were performed on scientific publications about 3DFP from January 1, 2014, to June 30, 2023, aiming to characterize the evolution, hotspots, and emerging trends in this research area. Using "3D food printing" as the topic search term, 517 studies from 1,509 authors at 441 institutions in 56 countries/regions were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection. Scientometric analysis was performed using VOSviewer in terms of annual publications, countries/regions, institutions, authors, journals, highly cited papers, and keywords. A co-occurrence analysis of 105 keywords with a frequency greater than three was conducted, resulting in five clusters. In conjunction with the analysis of highly cited papers and hot papers, "hydrogels," "high internal phase emulsion," "bigels," "dysphagic food," and "4D printing" were identified as the latest high-frequency keywords and research hotspots, indicating the emerging frontiers of 3DFP. The clustered keywords were further discussed to assist researchers in determining the topic scope and planning their research directions. This study revealed the current trends, global collaboration patterns, fundamental knowledge, research hotspots, and emerging frontiers in 3DFP.

Quantifying digital-native and legacy, national and local news websites in Spain, their topic scope and platforms

Digital media have become an integral part of the journalism industry and of audience habits – in 2021 our research registered 2873 active news websites in Spain. First, this paper explores trends facing online news; it sets out the criteria used to identify a news brand as digital-native or non-native; and it presents the results of our classification. This includes: data on the presence of news titles both on proprietary platforms (print, radio, TV or app) in addition to their websites, and on external platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Telegram); their geographic scope (hyperlocal, local/regional or national/global); their subject (general or specialized coverage); and on ownership and language used. Almost 70% of the media were regional or local, while 60% covered general news, and one in three were linked to a print product, almost as many as those with their own app for users. Social media uptake is so widespread that more than 95% of the sites are on Facebook, with a similar number on Twitter, while more than 60% can be found on YouTube, and similarly on Instagram. Among specialized sites, sport is the largest category, comprising twice as many digital-native sites (106) than sites with traditional roots (46). The entertainment focus expands in the digital environment, and online-originated culture, business and science and technology outlets also outnumber legacy publications.

Syntactic structure and rhetorical combinations of Iranian English research article titles in medicine and applied linguistics: A cross-disciplinary study

This corpus-based cross-disciplinary study investigated the syntactic structures and rhetorical combinations of 200 research article titles in two disciplines, namely, medicine (100) and applied linguistics (100). The RA titles were selected from four reputable Iranian English journals. The authors were all Iranian researchers in these two disciplines. The titles were analyzed in light of Dietz taxonomy. First, the frequencies and percentages of each syntactic and rhetorical construction occurrence have been calculated. Next, the authors performed a t-test regarding title length and the chi-square test to decide whether syntactic or rhetorical construction is a discipline-specific convention. The findings revealed thatmedical titles were longer than the linguistic ones. The frequency and percentage of both single- and multi-unit RA titles were essentially the same in both disciplines. Concerning the syntactic components of single-unit RA titles, the most frequently used structure was the nominal construction, followed by verbal and prepositional ones. The most recurrent syntactic components of the nominal structure in both disciplines were post- and pre-modified, with medical titles overtaking the linguistic titles in all nominal categories. In terms of verbal constructions, the dominant structure in medicine was the full sentence, and in applied linguistics, gerund phrases. Regarding the rhetorical components of multi-unit RA titles, medical titles took precedence over the linguistic titles in using the topic method. The topic scope and topic description organization are mostly reported in applied linguistics titles. In this study, however, two new rhetorical combinations were identified. The chi-square test results only confirmed the verbal structures of single-unit and the rhetorical combinations of multi-unit RA titles as distinctive features for each discipline.

Funding Sustainable Online News: Sources of Revenue in Digital-Native and Traditional Media in Spain

Digital news publishers strive to balance revenue streams in their business models: as standard advertising declines, alternatives for sustaining digital journalism arise in the forms of sponsored content, user donations and payments—one-off purchases, subscriptions or memberships, public or private grants, electronic commerce, events and consulting. An exhaustive study found 2874 active online news publications in Spain, and it observed the adoption of such models in early 2021. Advertising remains the most popular source of income for digital news operations (85.8%) and most sites rely on just one or two revenue streams (74.5%). We compare the cases in our census by their origin (digital-native or non-native), geography (local/regional or national/global) and topic scope (generalist or specialized). We find that traditional, national and specialized online media have a broader and more innovative revenue mix than digital-native, regional or local and general-interest news outlets. The comprehensiveness of this pioneering study sheds light for the first time on the risk that the lack of diversification and innovation in funding sources may imperil the financial sustainability of some online news operations in Spain, mostly those with a smaller scope and no backing from a traditional business, according to the results we present here.

Asset management competency requirements in Australian local government: a systematic literature review

The objective of this systematic literature review was to investigate the current understanding of the competencies needed by Engineering Asset Management personnel in local authorities within Australia. During the development of the search string for the literature review, it was found that there were no available peer-reviewed articles on Engineering Asset Management competencies through an Australian local authority lens between January 2010 and December 2019 within the searched databases. Based on this, the search string criteria was re-focused onto Engineer Asset Management competencies within Australia (in general), as the new frame. Using this updated string search, the authors searched several databases (EBSCOHost, Informit, Scopus Informit and Web of Science) for research published in English between January 2010 and December 2019 that detailed the competencies deemed necessary for personnel undertaking Engineering Asset Management activities within the Australian context. Additional records were searched for in relation to the topic, from a range of Engineering and Engineering Management Conferences held between 2010 and 2019. Two hundred and thirty publications were identified through database searches, while eight conference proceedings were identified from the additional conference search. These were initially checked for duplicates, and then subjected to the refinement stage against a detailed review criteria, as per the PRISMA framework checklist process. Four articles progressed through the full PRISMA framework process. Further in-depth reviews of the remaining four papers found that one article was principally focused on the Australian Quality Framework (AQF) certification training processes, while the remaining three papers contained data of competency requirements (and example subjects) for Engineering Asset Management personnel within Australia. This data was collated, and through a deductive qualitative content analysis, was coded into three common themes: (1) Technical skills, (2) Professional skills – internally focused and (3) Professional skills – externally focused. The review process undertaken within this research initially showed that there were no papers within the original search frame of Australian local authorities, while the updated search detailed limited available literature within the general Australian context. This highlights an apparent gap within the available literature for the research topic scope during the period within January 2010 and December 2019.

Qualitative Research via Focus Groups: Will Going Online Affect the Diversity of Your Findings?

Practitioners and researchers are conducting more focus groups online as a qualitative data collection method, yet rigorous methodological studies investigating the diversity of findings versus traditional in-person focus groups are limited. Previous studies primarily focused on health topics, varied on topic scope (broad to sensitive), format (synchronous vs. asynchronous), and online platform (several no longer exist). This experimental study sought to address that gap by randomly assigning participants into treatment groups to brainstorm sustainable practices for the hospitality industry (i.e., a broad topic) on a popular publicly available platform (i.e., Reddit). Although the in-person focus groups generated a greater word count and number of ideas, they generated an equivalent number of unique ideas. In terms of idea diversity, thematic analysis revealed a relatively high degree of overlap in themes from both groups. Of 13 themes, 10 (77%) occurred in both treatment groups. The overlapping themes represented 91% of all key words generated across both groups. These results highlight the potential for online focus groups to generate idea diversity at a level that is comparable to in-person focus groups. For practitioners seeking to benefit from guest insights, the findings help to substantiate the value of a lower cost, faster-to-market data collection method.

Intelligent design and implementation of blockchain and Internet of things–based traffic system

With the continuous development of Internet of things, all kinds of smart systems are quickly evolving to make our day-to-day life smoother and safer. Like many other sectors, transportation has entered a period of rapid change. Intelligent Traffic System is one of the fastest-growing fields within the smart systems, which is expected to increase road safety, mitigate traffic congestion, and enable fuel efficiency. The main functionalities of Intelligent Traffic System are as follows: (1) monitoring real-time traffic conditions in specific areas, (2) locating traffic emergencies (i.e. traffic accidents) in specific areas, and (3) dynamic monitoring and managing the continuous use in public transit services (i.e. change in car lanes) that may lead to changes in macro traffic conditions. This article will use the above-mentioned functionalities of the Intelligent Traffic System as underlying simulative scenarios, to design and to implement a smart transportation system based on Internet of things and blockchain—both share inherent distributed technology characteristics—combining both Internet of things sensor nodes and distributed ledger technology, to (1) record the changes in intelligent transportation systems and (2) set up a credit-token mechanism for paying the use and misuses in public transit services accordingly. The Intelligent Traffic System described in this article is intended to be used as experimental project only, given the terms and conditions as depicted in the simulated scenario. In real-life traffic scenarios, it may generate more complex system and data security issues, which will be elaborated and analyzed at the end of this article. Intelligent Traffic System is a comprehensive smart system; it can significantly change and reinvent the wheel for traffic conditions. Based on the system development as discussed in this article, there are still a lot of demands and challenges that need to be addressed in the future. Such topic scope will be explored in depth in our subsequent research.

THE DEVELOPMENT MODEL OF LIVING HOUSES WITH THE MIX USE GENDER-BASED PATTERN (CASE STUDY: KAMPUNG GAJAHMUNGKUR SEMARANG)

The existence of Kampung Jajan Pasar in Gajahmungkur Administrative Village, as the village (kampong) in Semarang City that produces traditional snacks for its commodity, has made its people utilize their living houses as a production room to produce food for home industry. Having limited area and facing the demand to extend the rooms for their home industry, these villagers, mostly females, eventually add another use for rooms of their living houses (mix use). These living houses have become the socio-economic places which describe gender equality (for females) in business related to the utilization of rooms using mix use pattern. This research tries to describe the potency of the villagers and their village that has been appointed as the thematic village with topic scope of adaptation resilience at living house towards the production room function. This result is used as the base for the development model of living houses with the gender-based mix use pattern at Kampung Jajan Pasar in Gajahmungkur, Semarang. The data collecting method were literature studies, observations, interviews, and primary and secondary data extraction. The development of the model used graphic design model and the layout design. The given output is a graphic design model of living houses development based on gender and the layout of environmental space as the center of traditional snacks in Semarang City.

Topic search filters: a systematic scoping review.

Searching for topics within large biomedical databases can be challenging, especially when topics are complex, diffuse, emerging or lack definitional clarity. Experimentally derived topic search filters offer a reliable solution to effective retrieval; however, their number and range of subject foci remain unknown. This systematic scoping review aims to identify and describe available experimentally developed topic search filters. Reports on topic search filter development (1990-) were sought using grey literature sources and 15 databases. Reports describing the conception and prospective development of a database-specific topic search and including an objectively measured estimate of its performance ('sensitivity') were included. Fifty-four reports met inclusion criteria. Data were extracted and thematically synthesised to describe the characteristics of 58 topic search filters. Topic search filters are proliferating and cover a wide range of subjects. Filter reports, however, often lack clear definitions of concepts and topic scope to guide users. Without standardised terminology, filters are challenging to find. Information specialists may benefit from a centralised topic filter repository and appraisal checklists to facilitate quality assessment. Findings will help information specialists identify existing topic search filters and assist filter developers to build on current knowledge in the field.

Virtual Co-Creation with Customers in the Early Stages of New Product Development

Virtual ‘co-creation’ can be a more effective way to integrate customers into the NPD process. In our study, we examine the effectiveness of virtual co-creation in the early stages of new product development (i.e. idea generation). Specifically, we focus on multiple contingent factors that can potentially impact the outcomes of co-creating activities in terms of the quality of submitted ideas by customers. Based on two integrated empirical studies, we analyze whether certain design elements of virtual co-creation activities, specific customer characteristics, brand relationship characteristics and selected interactions between those variables impact the quality of submitted ideas. We find that design aspects of virtual co-creation such as incentives, seed ideas, topic scope and task-related information have no or only little impact on the quality of submitted ideas. Customers who have a high level of latent dissatisfaction with existing products, a high level of creativity, and a strong commitment to the brand produce higher quality new product ideas. The interaction between latent dissatisfaction and intention to recommend is significant which reinforces the notion that dissatisfied customers with high levels of brand loyalty come up with high quality new product ideas.

Editorial: Health Care Financing and Affordability in the Emerging Global Markets

Editorial: Health Care Financing and Affordability in the Emerging Global Markets

Correlation between MCAT Biology Content Specifications and Topic Scope and Sequence of General Education College Biology Textbooks

Most American colleges and universities offer gateway biology courses to meet the needs of three undergraduate audiences: biology and related science majors, many of whom will become biomedical researchers; premedical students meeting medical school requirements and preparing for the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT); and students completing general education (GE) graduation requirements. Biology textbooks for these three audiences present a topic scope and sequence that correlates with the topic scope and importance ratings of the biology content specifications for the MCAT regardless of the intended audience. Texts for "nonmajors," GE courses appear derived directly from their publisher's majors text. Topic scope and sequence of GE texts reflect those of "their" majors text and, indirectly, the MCAT. MCAT term density of GE texts equals or exceeds that of their corresponding majors text. Most American universities require a GE curriculum to promote a core level of academic understanding among their graduates. This includes civic scientific literacy, recognized as an essential competence for the development of public policies in an increasingly scientific and technological world. Deriving GE biology and related science texts from majors texts designed to meet very different learning objectives may defeat the scientific literacy goals of most schools' GE curricula.

'Scoping the scope' of a cochrane review

Systematic reviews use a transparent and systematic process to define a research question, search for studies, assess their quality and synthesize findings qualitatively or quantitatively. A crucial step in the systematic review process is to thoroughly define the scope of the research question. This requires an understanding of existing literature, including gaps and uncertainties, clarification of definitions related to the research question and an understanding of the way in which these are conceptualized within existing literature. This information is often acquired in an ad hoc fashion, however a useful and increasingly popular way to collect and organize important background information and develop a picture of the existing evidence base is to conduct a scoping review. Such reviews may be published as a research outcome in their own right and are appealing since they produce a broad map of the evidence that, if sufficiently transparent and widely available via publication, can be used by many and for applications beyond the authors originally intended purpose. Scoping reviews can inform a systematic review, particularly one with a very broad topic scope, such as those edited by the Cochrane Public Health Group.

Reply to: African dust and asthma in the Caribbean—medical and statistical perspectives by M A Monteil and R Antoine

Keywords Caribbean.Saharandust.AsthmaMonteil and Antoine (henceforth, M&A) comment on ourpaper (Prospero et al. 2008) and find much fault with it.Their comments show that they fail to understand theobjective of the study, and that they misunderstand andmisstate our conclusions. It is clear that their maincomplaint about our work is that it is not a full-blownepidemiological study of the impact of African dust onhealth—not just asthma. Furthermore, we note that M&A,in presenting objections to our work, do not cite anyscientific data that shows contrary results that are specific toAfrican dust and to Barbados and the Caribbean. Rather,they cite much literature on the relationship betweenaerosols and human health in general, a topic far beyondthe scope of our work.Ourpaperevolvedfromalong-termstudyinitiatedbyJ.M.Prospero of the long-range transport of continental aerosolsovertheoceansandtheirroleinclimate,aprogramthatbeganin1965onBarbadosandcontinuestothisday.Africandustisa major component in trade wind aerosols. There is a strongannual dust cycle with maximum concentrations in the springandsummerwhendustconcentrationscanincreasebyafactorof 10–100 over the course of a day, at times yieldingconcentrationsover100 μgm

Status Conferral and Topic Scope

“Status conferral” is the notion that press coverage singles out and confers importance upon the person or group covered. If status conferral occurs, it has serious implications for traditional conceptions of how the press should function in a democracy. In two experiments, the author reported evidence supporting the existence of a status conferral effect. Status conferral was tested indirectly by varying the prestige of the news agency providing the coverage and observing differences in the perceived status of persons covered. However, there were ambiguities in previous results and the present experiment was intended to clarify them. Conferral differences appeared consistently on two of three indices in previous work—“Safety” and “Dynamism”—but not on the third, “Qualification.” In previous studies, the topics sources that were being recognized as qualified for discussion were always of broad, national application or scope. Thus if Qualification conferral were related to topic scope, no differences would have been observed because topic scope was constant. To test this, the present experiment varied both the news agency providing the coverage and the scope or application of the news topic. What the source said, substantively, remained the same. Scope was varied by having him say it about “US. cities” or the city in which the newspaper was published. In one of two replications of the design, the predicted topic scope difference was observed for Qualification but news agency conferral differences were also observed for Qualification. A fourth conferral index—“prominence”—was as sensitive as Qualification to news agency conferral differences.