Abstract

Abstract
Various relevant aspects of our lives relate to the places we visit and our daily activities. The movement of individuals between regular places, such as work, school, or other important personal locations is getting increasing attention due to the pervasiveness of geolocation devices and the amount of data they generate. This paper presents an approach for personal location prediction using a probabilistic model and data mining techniques over mobility data streams. We extract the individuals’ locations from relevant events in a data stream to build and maintain a Markov Chain over the important places. We evaluate the method over 3 real-world datasets. The results show the usefulness of the proposal in comparison with other well-known approaches. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2025.

Abstract
Pain is a highly subjective phenomenon that depends on multiple factors. The common methods used to evaluate pain require the person to be awakened and cooperative, which may not always be possible. Moreover, such methods are subject to non-quantifiable influences, namely the impact of an individual’s emotional state on how pain is perceived or how negative emotions may exacerbate pain perception, while positive emotions may attenuate it. The goal of this study was to conduct a novel protocol for pain induction with emotional elicitation and assess its feasibility. In this protocol, the physiological responses were monitored, and collected, through Electrocardiogram, Electrodermal Activity, and surface Electromyogram signals. Along the protocol, the pain perception was evaluated using a 0–10 numerical rating scale and by registering the time from the pain stimulus beginning to the Pain and Tolerance Thresholds. This study comprised three emotional sessions, negative, positive, and neutral, which were performed through videos of excerpts of terror, comedy, and documentary films, respectively, followed by pain induction using the Cold Pressor Task (CPT). A total of 56 participants performed the study, with a CPT mean time of about 91.70 ± 39.64 s among all the sessions. The conducted protocol was considered feasible and safe as it allowed the collection of physiological data, pain, and questionnaires’ reports from 56 participants, without any harm to them. Moreover, the collected data can be further used to assess how emotional conditions influence pain perception and to provide better emotion-calibrated pain recognition systems based on physiological signals. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2025.

Abstract
MotivationAccurate determination and quantification of the taxonomic composition of microbial communities, especially at the species level, is one of the major issues in metagenomics. This is primarily due to the limitations of commonly used 16S rRNA reference databases, which either contain a lot of redundancy or a high percentage of sequences with missing taxonomic information. This may lead to erroneous identifications and, thus, to inaccurate conclusions regarding the ecological role and importance of those microorganisms in the ecosystem.ResultsThe current study presents MIMt, a new 16S rRNA database for archaea and bacteria's identification, encompassing 47 001 sequences, all precisely identified at species level. In addition, a MIMt2.0 version was created with only curated sequences from RefSeq Targeted loci with 32 086 sequences. MIMt aims to be updated twice a year to include all newly sequenced species. We evaluated MIMt against Greengenes, RDP, GTDB and SILVA in terms of sequence distribution and taxonomic assignments accuracy. Our results showed that MIMt contains less redundancy, and despite being 20 to 500 times smaller than existing databases, outperforms them in completeness and taxonomic accuracy, enabling more precise assignments at lower taxonomic ranks and thus, significantly improving species-level identification.

Abstract
Lack of timeliness and capacity are seen as fundamental problems that jeopardise healthcare delivery systems everywhere. Many believe the shortage of medical providers is causing this timeliness problem. This action research presents how one doctor implemented the theory of constraints (TOC) to improve the throughput (quantity of patients treated) of his ophthalmology imaging practice by 64% in a few weeks with little to no expense. The five focusing steps (5FS) guided the TOC implementation - which included the drum-buffer-rope scheduling and buffer management - and occurred in a matter of days. The implementation provided significant bottom-line results almost immediately. This article explains each step of the 5FS in general terms followed by specific applications to healthcare services, as well as the detailed use in this action research. Although TOC successfully addressed the practice problems, this implementation was not sustained after the TOC champion left the organisation. However, this drawback provided valuable knowledge. The article provides insightful knowledge to help readers implement TOC in their environments to provide immediate and significant results at little to no expense.

Abstract
PurposeTo develop, implement and assess the results of psychoeducation to improve the QoL of parents with CHD newborns.MethodsParticipants were parents of inpatient newborns with the diagnosis of non-syndromic CHD. We conducted a parallel RCT with an allocation ratio of 1:1 (intervention vs. control), considering the newborns, using mixed methods research. The intervention group received psychoeducation (Parental Psychoeducation in CHD [PPeCHD]) and the usual routines, and the control group received just the regular practices. The allocation concealment was assured. PI was involved in enrolling participants, developing and implementing the intervention, data collection and data analysis. We followed the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) guidelines.ResultsParents of eight newborns were allocated to the intervention group (n = 15 parents) and eight to the control group (n = 13 parents). It was performed as an intention-to-treat (ITT) analysis. In M2 (4 weeks), the intervention group presented better QoL levels in the physical, psychological, and environmental domains of World Health Organization Quality of Life instrument (WHOQOL-Bref). In M3 (16 weeks), scores in physical and psychological domains maintained a statistically significant difference between the groups.ConclusionsThe PPeCHD, the psychoeducational intervention we developed, positively impacted parental QoL. These results support the initial hypothesis. This study is a fundamental milestone in this research field, adding new essential information to the literature.