Can new urbanization pilot policies promote green technology innovation in cities: Empirical evidence from China.

The development of urbanization has brought new challenges to the ecological environment, and the promotion of green technology innovation and development is widely recognized as an essential method to achieve cities' economic benefits and environmental protection. This paper examines whether the new urbanization pilot policies (NUP) increase green technology innovation (GTI) from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. This paper examines the impact of new urbanization on GTI by analyzing data from 285 cities in China between 2010 and 2021, using the multi-period DID model with the implementation of NUP as an exogenous policy shock. The study results indicate that NUP significantly affects GTI, and the conclusion still holds after the parallel trend test, placebo test, and other robustness tests. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the NUP significantly enhances GTI in low environmental pollution, non-resource-based, Medium-sized, and Central Region cities. The test of moderating effect shows that NUP has a "linkage effect" with the government's environmental attention, financial investment in innovation, and regional talent pooling. The findings of this paper provide empirical evidence and decision-making reference for promoting NUP and sustainable development of cities.

Assessment and management of constipation in post-operative patients in the spinal surgery ward: a best practice implementation project.

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE: Constipation is a common complication following spinal surgery that can result in distension, abdominal pain, infection, and even intestinal perforation. This study reports on an evidence-based implementation project to reduce the incidence of constipation in spinal surgery wards. METHODS: The project was conducted in the spinal surgery ward of a general tertiary hospital in Changsha City, China, from March to August 2022. We used the JBI Implementation Framework and the JBI Model of Evidence-Based Healthcare for audits and feedback. Data were collected and analyzed using JBI's Practical Application of Clinical Evidence System (PACES) software. Seven audit criteria were developed based on the best practice recommendations summarized by JBI. A baseline audit was conducted with 20 nurses and 50 patients in the spinal surgery ward, and a follow-up audit was conducted using the same sample size and setting. RESULTS: The baseline audit revealed compliance below 46% for five of the seven criteria. Strategies developed to address poor compliance included educating nurses and patients, developing a post-operative constipation risk assessment sheet, organizing stakeholder focus group meetings, establishing a constipation management routine, and effective empowerment of nurses. The follow-up audit showed positive compliance results, with the highest rate for Criterion 7 (100%) and the greatest increase for Criterion 2 (from 0% to 78%). Furthermore, the incidence of post-operative constipation decreased from 48% to 16%. CONCLUSION: The project improved compliance with audit criteria, reduced the incidence of constipation, and enhanced the efficiency of quality management in the spinal surgery ward. SPANISH ABSTRACT: http://links.lww.com/IJEBH/A186.

Intimate Partner Violence Screening Instruments: A Protocol for a COSMIN-Based Systematic Review.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a major public health problem resulting in a significant impediment to equal participation, quality of life, and personal, social, and economic development. At present, a variety of screening instruments for IPV have emerged in developed countries, and some of them have been adapted to the language and culture of different countries, such as Hurt, Insult, Threaten, Scream (HITS) and the Abuse Assessment Screen (AAS). The selection of the most appropriate IPV screening instrument for the target population and context from among those instruments has become difficult for researchers when intending to start screening. Therefore, a systemic review of IPV screening instruments is needed. This protocol describes a COSMIN-based systematic review of the measurement properties of these instruments. The aims of the systematic review are to (1) evaluate the methodological quality of studies on the measurement properties including the validity, reliability, and internal consistency of these IPV screening instruments, and (2) provide suggestions for relevant researchers in their local context for using the IPV screening instruments.

AOSRV: Development and preliminary performance assessment of a new robotic system for autonomous percutaneous vertebroplasty.

BACKGROUND: Percutaneous vertebroplasty (PVP) is one of the most effective treatments for patients with vertebral fracture that need surgical treatment, and surgical robotics are promising tools to provide surgeons with improved precision, surgical efficiency and reduce radiation exposure. However, there are currently few robotics that are developed to help assist with PVP. METHODS: A new spinal surgical robotic system 'AOSRV' for autonomous vertebral puncture and bone cement injection was designed and customised in this study. To investigate its practical abilities and the advantages, we performed single-segment/double-segment PVP simulation surgeries on pig spinal specimens manually and using AOSRV. RESULTS: By contrast with the freehand group (FG) in single-segment (SS)/double-segment (DS) surgery, the robotic group (RG) was superior in the operation time (RGSS = 21.14 ± 4.11 min, FGSS = 33.17 ± 6.83 min; RGDS = 42.39 ± 7.31 min, FGDS = 62.86 ± 20.39 min), puncture adjustments (RGSS = 2.30 ± 1.77, FGSS = 14.86 ± 5.46; RGDS = 3.91 ± 1.76, FGDS = 20.00 ± 7.76), intraoperative fluoroscopies (RGSS = 4.10 ± 1.52, FGSS = 20.57 ± 5.44; RGDS = 7.82 ± 1.40, FGDS = 25.91 ± 7.23) and bone cement leakage rate (RGSS = 30%, FGSS = 71.4%; RGDS = 38.6%, FGDS = 83.3%). CONCLUSIONS: AOSRV was successfully developed and had a promising preliminary performance. An innovative attempt was made for the blank space of the autonomous vertebroplasty surgical robotics, and it may shed a light on more promising applications in the future.

Blood transfusion risk prediction in spinal tuberculosis surgery: development and assessment of a novel predictive nomogram.

OBJECTIVE: The present study attempted to predict blood transfusion risk in spinal tuberculosis surgery by using a novel predictive nomogram. METHODS: The study was conducted on the clinical data of 495 patients (167 patients in the transfusion group and 328 patients in the non-transfusion group) who underwent spinal tuberculosis surgery in our hospital from June 2012 to June 2021. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) and multivariable logistic regression analyses were used to screen out statistically significant parameters, which were included to establish a novel predictive nomogram model. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, calibration curves, C-index, and decision curve analysis (DCA) were used to evaluate the model. Finally, the nomogram was further assessed through internal validation. RESULTS: The C-index of the nomogram was 0.787 (95% confidence interval: 74.6%-.82.8%). The C-value calculated by internal validation was 0.763. The area under the curve (AUC) of the predictive nomogram was 0.785, and the DCA was 0.01-0.79. CONCLUSION: A nomogram with high accuracy, clinical validity, and reliability was established to predict blood transfusion risk in spinal tuberculosis surgery. Surgeons must prepare preoperative surgical strategies and ensure adequate availability of blood before surgery.

Bioaccumulation and health risk assessment of phthalate esters in cultured low trophic level fish feded with food waste-based diets.

The present study aimed at using different types of food waste as a protein source for the fish feeds to produce safe and quality fish. The results showed the concentrations of ∑PAEs in grass crap (0.24 µg g-1 ww) and bighead carp (0.15 µg g-1 ww) fed with Food waste B feeds (mainly containing fruit, vegetable and cereal waste) was significantly lower than those fed Food waste A feeds (mainly containing meat waste) and control feeds (p<0.05), and the highest ∑PAEs concentration (1.75 µg g-1 ww) was found in the mud carp fed with control feeds in experimental ponds (p<0.05). In addition, there was no biomagnification of PAEs in the food chains within the ponds. The health risk assessment results showed no non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risks from the PAEs via ingestion of the fish fed with food waste feeds for the local residents.

Predicting the Failure Risk of Internal Fixation Devices in Chinese Patients Undergoing Spinal Internal Fixation Surgery: Development and Assessment of a New Predictive Nomogram.

The current study is aimed at developing and validating a nomogram of the risk of failure of internal fixation devices in Chinese patients undergoing spinal internal fixation. We collected data from a total of 1139 patients admitted for spinal internal fixation surgery at the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University from May 2012 to February 2019. Of these, 1050 patients were included in the spinal internal fixation group and 89 patients in the spinal internal fixation device failure group. Patients were divided into training and validation tests. The risk assessment of the failure of the spinal internal fixation device used 14 characteristics. In the training test, the feature selection of the failure model of the spinal internal fixation device was optimized using the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression model. Based on the characteristics selected in the LASSO regression model, multivariate logistic regression analysis was used for constructing the model. Identification, calibration, and clinical usefulness of predictive models were assessed using C-index, calibration curve, and decision curve analysis. A validation test was used to validate the constructed model. In the training test, the risk prediction nomogram included gender, age, presence or absence of scoliosis, and unilateral or bilateral fixation. The model demonstrated moderate predictive power with a C-index of 0.722 (95% confidence interval: 0.644-0.800) and the area under the curve (AUC) of 0.722. Decision curve analysis depicted that the failure risk nomogram was clinically useful when the probability threshold for internal fixation device failure was 3%. The C-index of the validation test was 0.761. This novel nomogram of failure risk for spinal instrumentation includes gender, age, presence or absence of scoliosis, and unilateral or bilateral fixation. It can be used for evaluating the risk of instrumentation failure in patients undergoing spinal instrumentation surgery.

Machine Learning Approaches for Quality Assessment of Protein Structures.

Protein structures play a very important role in biomedical research, especially in drug discovery and design, which require accurate protein structures in advance. However, experimental determinations of protein structure are prohibitively costly and time-consuming, and computational predictions of protein structures have not been perfected. Methods that assess the quality of protein models can help in selecting the most accurate candidates for further work. Driven by this demand, many structural bioinformatics laboratories have developed methods for estimating model accuracy (EMA). In recent years, EMA by machine learning (ML) have consistently ranked among the top-performing methods in the community-wide CASP challenge. Accordingly, we systematically review all the major ML-based EMA methods developed within the past ten years. The methods are grouped by their employed ML approach-support vector machine, artificial neural networks, ensemble learning, or Bayesian learning-and their significances are discussed from a methodology viewpoint. To orient the reader, we also briefly describe the background of EMA, including the CASP challenge and its evaluation metrics, and introduce the major ML/DL techniques. Overall, this review provides an introductory guide to modern research on protein quality assessment and directions for future research in this area.