Guiding principles for the conduct of the Violence Study of Healthcare Workers and System (ViSHWaS): Insights from a global survey.

Background: Although many studies worldwide have reported on violence against health care workers, there is a lack of homogeneous data for understanding the current state of the issue. Conducting a global survey required a robust team organisation structure, unique dissemination strategies, and continual networking to maintain and propagate the pool of survey collaborators and responders. Here we aimed to describe the strategies that helped us carry out a global survey-based study, the lessons learned, and provide a practical roadmap for future large-scale cross-sectional studies. Methods: We conducted this cross-sectional survey-based study from 6 June to 9 August 2022, basing it on the 'Hub and Spoke' model, with a single core team and subgroups in different regions managed by country leads. The key steps included team organisation, strategy formulation for survey dissemination and data collection, social media launch, and conducting a post-survey analysis amongst the collaborators. The core team convened weekly via video conference to discuss the modus operandi. The language barrier was managed through audio translation or by shifting to 'an interviewer-administered' questionnaire. Results: The core team included 11 members from seven countries, followed by 28 country leads from 110 countries. We also gathered 80 regional collaborators who provided feedback and spread the message. The Violence Study of Healthcare Workers and Systems (ViSHWaS) returned 5500 responses globally. Guiding principles garnered through this collaborative project include focusing on effective team organisation, ensuring external validation of survey tool, personalised communication, global networking, timely communication for maintaining momentum, and addressing regional limitations. The post-survey analysis showed that WhatsApp messaging was the most common modality used for survey dissemination, followed by in-person meetings and text messaging. We noted that the successful techniques were direct communication with respondents, regular progress updates, responsiveness to regional and country lead needs, and timely troubleshooting. The most common barriers for the respondents were limitations in language proficiency, technical fallouts, lack of compliance with, and difficulty understanding the questionnaire. Conclusions: In this global survey-based study of more than 5500 responses from over 110 countries, we noted valuable lessons in team management, survey dissemination, and addressing barriers to collaborative research.

ViSHWaS: Violence Study of Healthcare Workers and Systems-a global survey.

OBJECTIVE: To provide insights into the nature, risk factors, impact and existing measures for reporting and preventing violence in the healthcare system. The under-reporting of violence against healthcare workers (HCWs) globally highlights the need for increased public awareness and education. METHODS: The Violence Study of Healthcare Workers and Systems study used a survey questionnaire created using Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap) forms and distributed from 6 June to 9 August 2022. Logistic regression analysis evaluated violence predictors, including gender, age, years of experience, institution type, respondent profession and night shift frequency. A χ2 test was performed to determine the association between gender and different violence forms. RESULTS: A total of 5405 responses from 79 countries were analysed. India, the USA and Venezuela were the top three contributors. Female respondents comprised 53%. The majority (45%) fell within the 26-35 age group. Medical students (21%), consultants (20%), residents/fellows (15%) and nurses (10%) constituted highest responders. Nearly 55% HCWs reported firsthand violence experience, and 16% reported violence against their colleagues. Perpetrators were identified as patients or family members in over 50% of cases, while supervisor-incited violence accounted for 16%. Around 80% stated that violence incidence either remained constant or increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Among HCWs who experienced violence, 55% felt less motivated or more dissatisfied with their jobs afterward, and 25% expressed willingness to quit. Univariate analysis revealed that HCWs aged 26-65 years, nurses, physicians, ancillary staff, those working in public settings, with >1 year of experience, and frequent night shift workers were at significantly higher risk of experiencing violence. These results remained significant in multivariate analysis, except for the 55-65 age group, which lost statistical significance. CONCLUSION: This global cross-sectional study highlights that a majority of HCWs have experienced violence, and the incidence either increased or remained the same during the COVID-19 pandemic. This has resulted in decreased job satisfaction.

The ASGLOS Study: A global survey on how predatory journals affect scientific practice.

Predatory journals and conferences are an emerging problem in scientific literature as they have financial motives, without guaranteeing scientific quality and exposure. The main objective of the ASGLOS project is to investigate the predatory e-email characteristics, management, and possible consequences and to analyse the extent of the current problem at each academic level. To collect the personal experiences of physicians' mailboxes on predatory publishing, a Google Form® survey was designed and disseminated from September 2021 to April 2022. A total of 978 responses were analysed from 58 countries around the world. A total of 64.8% of participants indicated the need for 3 or fewer emails to acquire a criticality view in distinguishing a real invitation from a spam, while 11.5% still have doubt regardless of how many emails they get. The AGLOS Study clearly highlights the problem of academic e-mail spam by predatory journals and conferences. Our findings signify the importance of providing academic career-oriented advice and organising training sessions to increase awareness of predatory publishing for those conducting scientific research.

Butterflyene: an entry into an aesthetically pleasing carbocycle via a Diels-Alder reaction on a tetrasubstituted olefin.

An interesting molecular architecture, butterflyene, resembling the shape of a butterfly has been synthesized via a sequence of cyclocondensation, benzylic oxidation, McMurry coupling and Diels-Alder reaction (DAR), successively. The DAR of the tetrasubstituted double bond of a bicyclopentylidene moiety with various dienes has been performed to prepare the analogues of butterflyene. DFT calculations have also been used to analyze the structural optimization and reaction energies.

A historical delve into neurotrauma-focused critical care.

Neurocritical care is a multidisciplinary field managing patients with a wide range of aliments. Specifically, neurotrauma is a rapidly growing field with increasing demands. The history of how neurotrauma management came to its current form has not been extensively explored before. Our review delves into the history, timeline, and noteworthy pioneers of neurotrauma-focused neurocritical care. We explore the historical development during early times, the 18th-20th centuries, and modern times, as well as warfare- and sports-related concussions. Research is ever growing in this budding field, with several promising innovations on the horizon.

Impact of ultraviolet-absorbing 2-hydroxy-4-quaternaryammoniumalkoxy benzophenone motif on photodegradation of disulfoton: a case study.

Pesticide deposits post-treatment and before diffusing inside the plants are exposed to sunlight. Many of them degrade into a variety of photoproducts that may be harmful to living beings through accidental ingestion. The addition of ultraviolet light absorbers to the pesticide formulations is an attractive strategy to prevent photodegradation of the pesticides. Water-soluble quaternary ammonium ultraviolet light absorbers (QAUVAs) were synthesized from 2,4-dihydroxy benzophenones (BP-1) and their structures were confirmed by 1H NMR, 13C NMR, UV, and FTIR. A cost-saving approach for the photoprotection of disulfoton insecticide using these QAUVAs is presented. All the four QAUVAs exhibit excellent UV screening effect. The insecticide disulfoton was recovered in much higher amounts (22.27 ~ 25.64% higher than control) when it was irradiated in the presence of QAUVAs in comparison with the amount of recovery of pesticide exposed in absence of them.

Site-selective unidirectional benzylic sp3 C-H oxidation of dodecahydrotriphenylene with RuCl3-NaIO4: formation of benzylic ketones.

Dodecahydrotriphenylene, a higher homologue of trindane chemoselectively undergoes unidirectional benzylic sp3 C-H oxidation and the central benzene ring remains intact unlike that in trindane under similar reaction conditions. RuO4 which generally attacks sp2 C-H to form oxidative products is found to give benzylic ketones via sp3 C-H oxidation. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations have also been performed to analyse the potential energy, energy barrier and HOMO-LUMO energy gap of the products.

Integrated near-field thermo-photovoltaics for heat recycling.

Energy transferred via thermal radiation between two surfaces separated by nanometer distances can be much larger than the blackbody limit. However, realizing a scalable platform that utilizes this near-field energy exchange mechanism to generate electricity remains a challenge. Here, we present a fully integrated, reconfigurable and scalable platform operating in the near-field regime that performs controlled heat extraction and energy recycling. Our platform relies on an integrated nano-electromechanical system that enables precise positioning of a thermal emitter within nanometer distances from a room-temperature germanium photodetector to form a thermo-photovoltaic cell. We demonstrate over an order of magnitude enhancement of power generation (Pgen ~ 1.25 µWcm-2) in our thermo-photovoltaic cell by actively tuning the gap between a hot-emitter (TE ~ 880 K) and the cold photodetector (TD ~ 300 K) from ~ 500 nm down to ~ 100 nm. Our nano-electromechanical system consumes negligible tuning power (Pgen/PNEMS ~ 104) and relies on scalable silicon-based process technologies.

Chip-scale blue light phased array.

Compact beam steering in the visible spectral range is required for a wide range of emerging applications, such as augmented and virtual reality displays, optical traps for quantum information processing, biological sensing, and stimulation. Optical phased arrays (OPAs) can shape and steer light to enable these applications with no moving parts on a compact chip. However, OPA demonstrations have been mainly limited to the near-infrared spectral range due to the fabrication and material challenges imposed by the shorter wavelengths. Here, we demonstrate the first chip-scale phased array operating at blue wavelengths (488 nm) using a high-confinement silicon nitride platform. We use a sparse aperiodic emitter layout to mitigate fabrication constraints at this short wavelength and achieve wide-angle beam steering over a 50° field of view with a full width at half-maximum beam size of 0.17°. Large-scale integration of this platform paves the way for fully reconfigurable chip-scale three-dimensional volumetric light projection across the entire visible range.

Reconfigurable nanophotonic silicon probes for sub-millisecond deep-brain optical stimulation.

The use of nanophotonics to rapidly and precisely reconfigure light beams for the optical stimulation of neurons in vivo has remained elusive. Here we report the design and fabrication of an implantable silicon-based probe that can switch and route multiple optical beams to stimulate identified sets of neurons across cortical layers and simultaneously record the produced spike patterns. Each switch in the device consists of a silicon nitride waveguide structure that can be rapidly (<20 µs) reconfigured by electrically tuning the phase of light. By using an eight-beam probe, we show in anaesthetized mice that small groups of single neurons can be independently stimulated to produce multineuron spike patterns at sub-millisecond precision. We also show that a probe integrating co-fabricated electrical recording sites can simultaneously optically stimulate and electrically measure deep-brain neural activity. The technology is scalable, and it allows for beam focusing and steering and for structured illumination via beam shaping. The high-bandwidth optical-stimulation capacity of the device might facilitate the probing of the spatiotemporal neural codes underlying behaviour.

Broadband enhancement of thermal radiation.

Broadband thermal radiation sources are critical for various applications including spectroscopy and electricity generation. However, due to the difficulty in simultaneously achieving high absorptivity and low thermal mass these sources are inefficient. We show a platform that enables one to obtain enhanced emission by coupling a thermal emitter to an optical cavity. We experimentally demonstrate broadband enhancement of thermal emission between λ ~2 ̶ 4.2 µm using an inherently poor thermal emitter consisting of tens of nanometers thick SiC film with 10% emissivity (εSiC ~0.1). We measure over twofold enhancement of total emission power over the entire spectral band and threefold enhancement of thermal emission over 3 to 3.4 µm. Our platform has the potential to enable development of ideal blackbody sources operating at substantially lower heating powers.

Hot Carrier-Based Near-Field Thermophotovoltaic Energy Conversion.

Near-field thermophotovoltaics (NFTPV) is a promising approach for direct conversion of heat to electrical power. This technology relies on the drastic enhancement of radiative heat transfer (compared to conventional blackbody radiation) that occurs when objects at different temperatures are brought to deep subwavelength distances (typically <100 nm) from each other. Achieving such radiative heat transfer between a hot object and a photovoltaic (PV) cell could allow direct conversion of heat to electricity with a greater efficiency than using current solid-state technologies (e.g., thermoelectric generators). One of the main challenges in the development of this technology, however, is its incompatibility with conventional silicon PV cells. Thermal radiation is weak at frequencies larger than the ∼1.1 eV bandgap of silicon, such that PV cells with lower excitation energies (typically 0.4-0.6 eV) are required for NFTPV. Using low bandgap III-V semiconductors to circumvent this limitation, as proposed in most theoretical works, is challenging and therefore has never been achieved experimentally. In this work, we show that hot carrier PV cells based on Schottky junctions between silicon and metallic films could provide an attractive solution for achieving high efficiency NFTPV electricity generation. Hot carrier science is currently an important field of research and several approaches are investigated for increasing the quantum efficiency (QE) of hot carrier generation beyond conventional Fowler model predictions. If the Fowler limit can indeed be overcome, we show that hot carrier-based NFTPV systems-after optimization of their thermal radiation spectrum-could allow electricity generation with up to 10-30% conversion efficiencies and 10-500 W/cm2 generated power densities (at 900-1500 K temperatures). We also discuss how the unique properties of thermal radiation in the extreme near-field are especially well suited for investigating recently proposed approaches for high QE hot carrier junctions. We therefore expect our work to be of interest for the field of hot carrier science and-by relying solely on conventional thin film materials-to provide a path for the experimental demonstration of NFTPV energy conversion.