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IntroductionThe development of high-quality stated preference (SP) surveys requires a rigorous design process involving engagement with representatives from the target population. However, while transparency in the reporting of the development of SP surveys is encouraged, few studies report on this process and the outcomes. Recommended stages of instrument development includes both steps for stakeholder/end-user engagement and pretesting. Pretesting typically involves interviews, often across multiple waves, with improvements made at each wave; pretesting is therefore resource intensive. The aims of this paper are to report on the outcomes of collaboration with a Lewy body dementia research advisory group during the design phase of a SP survey. We also evaluate an alternative approach to instrument development, necessitated by a resource constrained context.MethodThe approach involved conducting the stages of end-user engagement and pretesting together during a public involvement event. A hybrid approach involving a focus group with breakout interviews was employed. Feedback from contributors informed the evolution of the survey instrument.ResultsChanges to the survey instrument were organized into four categories: attribute modifications; choice task presentation and understanding; information presentation, clarity and content; and best-best scaling presentation. The hybrid approach facilitated group brainstorming while still allowing the researcher to assess the feasibility of choice tasks in an interview setting. However, greater individual exploration and the opportunity to trial iterative improvements across waves was not feasible with this approach.DiscussionInvolvement of the research advisory group resulted in a more person-centered survey design. In a context constrained by time and budget, and with consideration of the capacity and vulnerability of the target population, the approach taken was a feasible and pragmatic mechanism for improving the design of a SP survey.

The dearth of land in high-density urban centres necessitates constructing structures with deep interiors, with little or no connection to the external environment. Additionally, the negative relationships between high-rise structures in the city centresin recent times are increasingly making contact with the outdoor environments undesirable. Whether in the built environment, decision sciences, healthcare, or technological disciplines, there is a need to understand the factors necessary for windowless officeimplementation, its prominent researchers, and geographical contexts, among other conditions for practical application. These background variables could assist in arriving at emerging themes, problems and gaps for concrete windowless office development in Malaysia. In this systematic review, the bibliographic information of title, abstract and keywords was mined from 255 documents on the Scopus database to generate scientometric maps and links showing relationships on co-authorship, co-citation, co-occurrences, and bibliometric coupling. The top trending variables in windowless office research are COVID-19, energy efficiency, indoor air quality, heart rate variability, performance assessment, visual reality, and workplace environment. Like other advanced economies in Asia, Malaysia is seen to attain a satisfactory level of development to implement the windowless office design module, with stable electricity power, technological advancement, and psychological stability of the people. The emerging variables in this review will give novel directions in exploring the developmental, psychological and health conditions for effective windowless office implementation in the country and similar economies in Asia, Africa and South America, where metropolises are fast becoming compacted due to ever-growing city centres.

Academic family medicine faces an impending leadership crisis, (1-4) embodied by a deficit of available applicants for vacant chair positions nationwide. The most recent data from the Association of Departments [...]

It is generally accepted that the human abdominal wall comprises skin, subcutaneous tissues, muscles and their aponeuroses, and the parietal peritoneum. Understanding these layers and their mechanical properties provides valuable information to those designing procedural skills trainers, supporting surgical procedures (hernia repair), and engineering-based work (in silico simulation). However, there is little literature available on the mechanical properties of the abdominal wall in layers or as a composite in the context of designing a procedural skills trainer. This work characterizes the tensile properties of the human abdominal wall by layer and as a partial composite. Tissues were collected from fresh-never-frozen and fresh-frozen cadavers and tested in uniaxial tension at a rate of 5 mm/min until failure. Stress–strain curves were created for each sample, and the values for elastic moduli, ultimate tensile strength, and strain at failure were obtained. The experimental outcomes from this study demonstrated variations in tensile properties within and between tissues. The data also suggest that the tensile properties of composite abdominal walls are not additive. Ultimately, this body of work contributes to a deeper comprehension of these mechanical properties and will serve to enhance patient care, refine surgical interventions, and assist with more sophisticated engineering solutions.

The purpose of this study was to focus on the relationship between career-development training programs and the motivation of employees. The study used a qualitative method and a phenomenological design using semistructured interviews conducted with a script of open-ended questions. Two main components of the research design were the modified van Kaam method for exploration of experiences and the purposive selection of the participants. The 20 participants in the sample were project managers and consultants from south-central Texas, all of whom had experience with governmental projects. Based on interview responses, the findings of this study highlighted a concern from the participants that training programs have a major influence on workplace productivity and morale. Furthermore, the findings suggest the training program's quality may influence workplace productivity. The authors conclude by pointing out the analysis of the answers showed that not only does workplace productivity decline from the changes in a training program, but employee motivation is altered as well.

This study focused on the factors that affect motivation of faculty in Saudi Arabia. It included two surveys and open-ended queries to a focus group of five academic managers and 25 faculty members of varying nationalities, rank, and institutes in Saudi Arabia. The research showed that the faculties in Saudi Arabia's highest education industry feel disconnected from the program development. The faculty members did not feel motivated to participate in the development and improvement of the academic program due to: (a) lack of monetary and non monetary incentives, (b) management not involving faculty in decision-making, and (c) lack of recognition and moral support. However, the faculties were intrinsically motivated to perform their greater interest in intrinsic motivation as a personal measure for success inside the classroom, but extrinsic motivation was a factor that needed greater improvement from the management of the universities for faculty to partake in development of the program.

Abstract Delirium is an acute change in attention and cognition occurring in ~ 65% of severe SARS-CoV-2 cases. It is also common following surgery and an indicator of brain vulnerability and risk for the development of dementia. In this work we analyzed the underlying role of metabolism in delirium-susceptibility in the postoperative setting using metabolomic profiling of cerebrospinal fluid and blood taken from the same patients prior to planned orthopaedic surgery. Distance correlation analysis and Random Forest (RF) feature selection were used to determine changes in metabolic networks. We found significant concentration differences in several amino acids, acylcarnitines and polyamines linking delirium-prone patients to known factors in Alzheimer’s disease such as monoamine oxidase B (MAOB) protein. Subsequent computational structural comparison between MAOB and angiotensin converting enzyme 2 as well as protein–protein docking analysis showed that there potentially is strong binding of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to MAOB. The possibility that SARS-CoV-2 influences MAOB activity leading to the observed neurological and platelet-based complications of SARS-CoV-2 infection requires further investigation.

Current trends in post-secondary education enrollment indicate that colleges and universities are likely to experience an increase in the number of online students. The purpose of this study was to ascertain the type of resources and support features online faculty need, desire, and expect in a support website. The method used to collect research findings was an online survey. The participants for this study consisted of the online faculty population at an institution of higher learning in the southwestern United States. Participants were invited by email to participate in a 13 question survey which asked participants to rate the importance of the questions listed. Of the 2,522 survey invitations e-mailed to potential participants, 380 responded with completed surveys, providing a response rate of 15.06%. Although this was a relativity low response rate, researchers felt the demographics of the respondents provided an accurate representation of the population studied. Findings from the survey indicated participants agree there is a need to implement a support website. Participants indicated the support website should provide support resources, communication forums, and resources to increase connectivity to the institution. The authors note providing online faculty with support websites could be a differentiation strategy to recruit and retain quality online faculty.

Abstract Background Type 2 diabetes is a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and AD brain shows impaired insulin signalling. The role of peripheral insulin resistance on AD aetiopathogenesis in non-diabetic patients is still debated. Here we evaluated the influence of insulin resistance on brain glucose metabolism, grey matter volume and white matter lesions (WMLs) in non-diabetic AD subjects. Methods In total, 130 non-diabetic AD subjects underwent MRI and [18F]FDG PET scans with arterial cannula insertion for radioactivity measurement. T1 Volumetric and FLAIR sequences were acquired on a 3-T MRI scanner. These subjects also had measurement of glucose and insulin levels after a 4-h fast on the same day of the scan. Insulin resistance was calculated by the updated homeostatic model assessment (HOMA2). For [18F]FDG analysis, cerebral glucose metabolic rate (rCMRGlc) parametric images were generated using spectral analysis with arterial plasma input function. Results In this non-diabetic AD population, HOMA2 was negatively associated with hippocampal rCMRGlc, along with total grey matter volumes. No significant correlation was observed between HOMA2, hippocampal volume and WMLs. Conclusions In non-diabetic AD, peripheral insulin resistance is independently associated with reduced hippocampal glucose metabolism and with lower grey matter volume, suggesting that peripheral insulin resistance might influence AD pathology by its action on cerebral glucose metabolism and on neurodegeneration.

Currently the most common method of COVID-19 diagnosis is by qRT-PCR which is slow and requires expensive instrumentation. Here the authors report an electrochemical biosensor based on isothermal rolling circle amplification for rapid detection of SARS-CoV-2 in clinical samples.

Systems archetypes are patterns of structure found in systems that are helpful in understanding some of the dynamics within them. The intent of this study was to examine educational attainment data using the success-to-the-successful archetype as a model to see if it helps to explain the inequality observed in the data. Data covering 1990 to 2009 was collected from the United States Census Bureau for the United States, as well as for the States of Georgia and Washington. Findings indicated that this archetype is useful in explaining the variation, and there are several other terms and concepts that are helpful as well as the terms/concepts: success-to-the successful, the rich get richer, Pareto's law, Zipf's law, and power law distributions are related and sometimes used interchangeably.

Abstract Objective The prevalence of pre-diabetes is increasing globally with more than 470 million people projected to develop pre-diabetes by 2030. In Africa, the average prevalence of pre-diabetes was estimated at 7.3% in 2015 and affected individual will develop type 2 diabetes mellitus within few decades. The aim of the study was to determine the prevalence of pre-diabetes and associated risk factors among residents of Iganga municipality. A cross-sectional study was conducted among males and females aged 13–60 years. District health office provided updated household list from which sampling of the villages was performed based on probability proportionate to population. Consented participants were prepared for the study, allowing fasting for 8 to 10 h before blood collection the next morning. Individuals with impaired fasting glucose, were subjected to OGTT. Results 130 participants were enrolled, of which 98 were women. The mean age of the participants was 35 years. The prevalence of pre-diabetes was 3.8%. The proportion of impaired glucose tolerance was higher in current smokers (p = 0.01), obese participants (p = 0.002) and hypertensive participants (p

Abstract Background Liraglutide is a glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) analogue currently approved for type 2 diabetes and obesity. Preclinical evidence in transgenic models of Alzheimer’s disease suggests that liraglutide exerts neuroprotective effects by reducing amyloid oligomers, normalising synaptic plasticity and cerebral glucose uptake, and increasing the proliferation of neuronal progenitor cells. The primary objective of the study is to evaluate the change in cerebral glucose metabolic rate after 12 months of treatment with liraglutide in participants with Alzheimer’s disease compared to those who are receiving placebo. Methods/design ELAD is a 12-month, multi-centre, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase IIb trial of liraglutide in participants with mild Alzheimer’s dementia. A total of 206 participants will be randomised to receive either liraglutide or placebo as a daily injection for a year. The primary outcome will be the change in cerebral glucose metabolic rate in the cortical regions (hippocampus, medial temporal lobe, and posterior cingulate) from baseline to follow-up in the treatment group compared with the placebo group. The key secondary outcomes are the change from baseline to 12 months in z scores for clinical and cognitive measures (Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment Scale—Cognitive Subscale and Executive domain scores of the Neuropsychological Test Battery, Clinical Dementia Rating Sum of Boxes, and Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study—Activities of Daily Living) and the incidence and severity of treatment-emergent adverse events or clinically important changes in safety assessments. Other secondary outcomes are 12-month change in magnetic resonance imaging volume, diffusion tensor imaging parameters, reduction in microglial activation in a subgroup of participants, reduction in tau formation and change in amyloid levels in a subgroup of participants measured by tau and amyloid imaging, and changes in composite scores using support machine vector analysis in the treatment group compared with the placebo group. Discussion Alzheimer’s disease is a leading cause of morbidity worldwide. As available treatments are only symptomatic, the search for disease-modifying therapies is a priority. If the ELAD trial is successful, liraglutide and GLP-1 analogues will represent an important class of compounds to be further evaluated in clinical trials for Alzheimer’s treatment. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT01843075. Registration 30 April 2013.