Nevin Manimala

Sci Rep. 2025 Oct 13;15(1):35664. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-19658-4.

ABSTRACT

Privacy protection is a critical concern when dealing with sensitive survey questions. Conventional randomized response (RR) models frequently fall short in providing respondents with adequate secrecy when assessing important parameters like the probability of success p and the probability of truthfulness T. This study proposes an improved RR technique that addresses these drawbacks by providing better privacy protections and enabling the simultaneous calculation of T and π.The advantage of the proposed model is that it applies a two-stage randomization process, which estimates both T and π thereby offering enhanced protection for privacy. The proposed method is first initially developed using simple random sampling and builds upon a two-stage RR approach described in previous research. It is then expanded to include stratified random sampling in order to make it more applicable to survey designs that are more intricate. The methodology is derived analytically and evaluated with respect to computing efficiency and algebraic measures. The suggested model increases the overall quality and reliability of the survey data by reducing respondent reluctance and producing more accurate parameter estimations, as shown by efficiency comparisons with current methods. Additionally, without sacrificing the accuracy of the statistical estimates, the approach improves respondent participation. Simulations using different fixed values of n, π, and T show that the suggested model continuously performs better than traditional techniques in terms of reducing variance and protecting privacy under both simple and stratified sampling. These findings show that it is a useful, statistically sound method for carrying out surveys on delicate subjects, guaranteeing data quality and respondent protection.

PMID:41083641 | DOI:10.1038/s41598-025-19658-4

Sci Rep. 2025 Oct 13;15(1):35665. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-19639-7.

ABSTRACT

Studies document independent effects of prenatal air pollution exposure and social environmental factors, including neighborhood safety, on childhood asthma development with documented sex-specific effects. Further research examining these factors jointly is needed. We examined associations between prenatal residence-level daily fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) exposure and child asthma, considering effect modification by a validated Neighborhood Sentiment and Safety Index (NSSI) and child sex. Participants were mothers and full-term (> 37 weeks gestation) singleton-born children from two Boston-area pregnancy cohorts. The Asthma Coalition on Community, Environment and Social Stress (ACCESS) project enrolled 955 pregnant women between August 2002 and July 2009.The Programming of Intergenerational Stress Mechanisms (PRISM) study recruited 390 pregnant women from March 2011 to December 2013. Bayesian distributed lag interaction models (BDLIMs) were implemented to estimate associations between child asthma incidence and daily average maternal PM_2.5 exposure across gestation. Effect modification by NSSI and child sex was examined using a BDLIM comparing models with and without effect modification. Women were primarily minorities (29% black, 47% Hispanic) reporting less than a high school education (54%). Children were followed 15.1 ± 3 years; 204 (17%) developed asthma. In the overall sample (n = 1,178), increased PM_2.5 exposure between 21 and 27 weeks gestation was associated with increased odds of asthma in children born to women in the high NSSI group (NSSI ≥ 75th percentile representing safer neighborhoods). Both boys and girls were at higher risk of asthma when considering joint effects. These data add to a growing literature highlighting the need to consider both chemical toxins and psychosocial factors operating in communities to better elucidate which factors are driving respiratory health effects. A singular focus on changes to mitigate air pollution may not have high impact on improving respiratory health, particularly in historically under-resourced areas where effects may be more highly driven by social determinants.

PMID:41083639 | DOI:10.1038/s41598-025-19639-7

Sci Rep. 2025 Oct 13;15(1):35695. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-19671-7.

ABSTRACT

Nurse burnout is an escalating global concern and is often intensified by exposure to workplace violence (WPV). However, the psychological and behavioral pathways linking WPV and burnout remain insufficiently characterized. This study aimed to develop and test a model to examine the associations between WPV and nurse burnout; we tested statistical indirect paths via resilience and emotional labor and a conditional role of perceived organizational support. A cross-sectional survey was conducted from March to May 2025 among 549 clinical nurses from eight tertiary hospitals in Sichuan Province, China. Data were collected using structured questionnaires distributed via the Wenjuanxing online platform, covering demographic characteristics, WPV, resilience, emotional labor, burnout, and perceived organizational support. All statistical analyses were conducted in IBM SPSS Statistics 26.0. Indirect and moderation analyses were estimated in PROCESS v4.1 (Models 6 and 86) with 5,000 bootstrap resamples to obtain bias-corrected 95% confidence intervals; estimates are interpreted as associations. For the 549 participants, the MBI-HSS burnout score was 55.45 ± 21.31. Hierarchical regression showed that WPV was positively associated with burnout (β = 0.269, p < 0.001). Analyses indicated statistical indirect associations via resilience (β = 0.092, 95%CI 0.064-0.123) and via emotional labor (β = 0.031, 95%CI 0.012-0.053), and a significant sequential indirect pathway (β = 0.024, 95%CI 0.014-0.036). The interaction between emotional labor and perceived organizational support (POS) was significantly and negatively associated with burnout (β=-0.114, 95%CI – 0.185 to – 0.042), and POS conditioned the strength of the indirect associations. WPV was associated with higher burnout among nurses, with statistical indirect paths via lower resilience and higher emotional labor demands. A sequential indirect pathway was observed.Higher perceived organizational support was associated with attenuation of the positive association between emotional labor and burnout.Hospital managers are encouraged to implement comprehensive interventions focused on violence prevention, emotional labor training, and the development of organizational support systems.

PMID:41083622 | DOI:10.1038/s41598-025-19671-7

Sci Rep. 2025 Oct 13;15(1):35620. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-19524-3.

ABSTRACT

This study examined the prevalence of comorbid depression and anxiety in Chinese patients with temporomandibular disorders (TMDs), and their associations with pain intensity, sleep propensity, oral behaviors, jaw function, and oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL). It also evaluated the likelihood of different TMD subtypes among individuals with no depression or anxiety (NC), depression alone (DA), anxiety alone (AA), and comorbid conditions (CC). Participants recruited from a dental hospital completed a survey comprising sociodemographics, the Diagnostic Criteria for TMDs (DC/TMD) Symptoms Questionnaire, Patient Health Questionnaire-9, Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale-7, Numerical Pain Rating Scale, Epworth Sleepiness Scale, Oral Behaviors Checklist, Jaw Functional Limitation Scale-8, and the Oral Health Impact Profile for TMDs. Clinical examinations followed the DC/TMD protocol, classifying individuals into intra-articular (IT), pain-related (PT), or combined (CT) TMDs. Statistical analyses included chi-square tests, non-parametric methods, and multinomial logistic regression (α = 0.05). Among 798 participants (mean age 29.8 years [SD 10.7]; 79.6% women), 48.0%, 10.8%, 7.9%, and 33.3% had NC, DA, AA, and CC, respectively. Significant differences were observed in pain intensity (CC/AA/DA > NC), sleep propensity (CC/DA > AA/NC), jaw overuse behavior (CC > AA/NC; DA > NC), jaw functional limitation (CC > DA > NC; AA > NC), and OHRQoL (CC > AA > DA > NC). Moderate correlations were observed between jaw functional limitation and OHRQoL across groups, with additional links to pain intensity in DA and AA (r_s = 0.43-0.54). In adjusted models, DA was associated with greater odds of CT (OR 2.26; 95% CI 1.19-4.27), and CC with higher odds of PT (OR 1.72; 95% CI 1.02-2.89) and CT (OR 1.78; 95% CI 1.14-2.77). Comorbid depression and anxiety were linked to increased pain, sleep propensity, oral behaviors, jaw dysfunction, and poorer OHRQoL, reinforcing the need for integrated psychological care.

PMID:41083621 | DOI:10.1038/s41598-025-19524-3

Surg Endosc. 2025 Oct 13. doi: 10.1007/s00464-025-12271-6. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Minimally invasive surgery is the standard of care for general surgical procedures. While use continues to grow, current platforms are hindered by prolonged operative times, high costs, steep learning curves, and lack of surgeon autonomy, which restricts expansion and practicality in high-volume and ambulatory surgery centers. Our goal was to evaluate the safety and feasibility of a novel AI-powered robotic platform to perform solo surgery.

METHODS: An IDEAL framework 2a prospective, multi-center observational study was performed on consecutive patients planned for solo abdominal surgery using the Maestro™ robotic system (Moon Surgical SAS, Paris, France) from 10/2023 to 4/2025. Preoperative, intraoperative, postoperative, and device-specific variables were evaluated. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize outcome measures.

RESULTS: Forty-five procedures were performed by five surgeons. Patients had a mean age of 55.3 (SD 18.1) years and a mean BMI of 29.4 (8.1) kg/m². The cohort was 1/3 male and 2/3 female. The main indications for operation were cholecystitis (n = 17, 37.8%), obesity (n = 10, 22.1%), and inguinal hernia (n = 11, 24.4%). The most common cases were cholecystectomy (n = 17, 37.8%), inguinal hernia (n = 11, 24.4%), and sleeve gastrectomy (n = 5, 11.1%). The mean total room time was 95.5(SD 38.3) minutes, the mean operative time was 43.6(SD 30.6) minutes, and the mean robotic setup time was 6.1(SD 4.1) minutes. One case required conversion to multiport laparoscopy (2.2%). No cases required insertion of additional ports or a bedside assistant. The mean length of stay was < 1 (SD 1.3) day. There was minor morbidity in 3 (6.6%) patients, but no readmissions, reoperations, or mortality. There were no device-related adverse events.

CONCLUSION: This IDEAL 2a investigation showed the Maestro platform was safe and feasible for performing solo surgery, with acceptable safety and technical outcomes in routine and complex procedures. There is potential to improve operating room workflow and surgeon autonomy, with controlled studies to follow.

PMID:41083613 | DOI:10.1007/s00464-025-12271-6

Surg Endosc. 2025 Oct 13. doi: 10.1007/s00464-025-12263-6. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND AND STUDY AIM: Super minimally invasive surgery (SMIS) via endoscopic submucosal tunnel dissection (ESTD) has shown promising preliminary efficacy for the treatment of large early esophageal cancer (EEC). This study reports the short- and long-term outcomes of both single- and double-tunnel ESTD for large EEC.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: All 90 patients with large EEC underwent ESTD at three hospitals between December 2013 and March 2024. We divided patients into two groups (single-tunnel SMIS and double-tunnel SMIS).

MAIN OUTCOME MEASUREMENTS: rates of en bloc resection, complete resection (R0 resection), curative resection, dissection speed and complications were evaluated as short-term outcomes. Overall survival, local or distant recurrence, and postoperative stricture rates were evaluated as long-term outcomes.

RESULTS: For all patients, the en bloc and R0 resection rates were 97.8% and 67.8%, respectively. Post-ESTD bleeding and fever were detected in 8.9% and 17.8% of the procedures, respectively. Postoperative stenosis and recurrence occurred in 54 patients (60.0%) and 7 patients (9.5%), respectively. Among the 90 patients with different circumferential-extent lesions, those who received a double-tunnel ESTD procedure (n = 54) underwent dissection faster than those who received a single-tunnel ESTD procedure (n = 36, 0.25 vs. 0.19 cm²/min, P = 0.012). No statistically significant differences were observed between the two groups in terms of short-term postoperative complications, postoperative esophageal stenosis, survival or recurrence rates (P > 0.05). Multivariate regression analysis revealed that whole-circumferential lesions were an independent risk factor for technical difficulties.

CONCLUSION: ESTD was effective for treating large early esophageal carcinoma. Compared with single-tunnel ESTD, double-tunnel ESTD has a faster resection speed, and there was no significant difference in short-term postoperative complications or long-term follow-up results. Therefore, double-tunnel ESTD is safe, reliable and more efficient in the treatment of large EEC.

PMID:41083611 | DOI:10.1007/s00464-025-12263-6

Sci Rep. 2025 Oct 13;15(1):35745. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-21604-3.

ABSTRACT

This paper proposes a novel hybrid image encryption scheme that combines a memristor-based hyperchaotic system, the Trivium stream cipher, DNA-inspired operations, and a lightweight 3DES layer into a tightly integrated multi-layer architecture. The memristor-based chaotic system ensures a large key space and complex dynamics, while the Trivium cipher enhances randomness, and the DNA operations introduce strong confusion and diffusion properties. The addition of 3DES further reinforces resistance against brute-force and structural attacks. Extensive experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm: the information entropy of encrypted images approaches the ideal value (7.999), the correlation coefficients between adjacent pixels are reduced to nearly zero (≈ 0.001), and differential attack metrics achieve NPCR values above 99.58% and UACI values above 33%. Furthermore, the scheme exhibits robustness against data loss and noise (up to 20% salt-and-pepper noise) with minimal degradation in decrypted images. Hardware implementation on the NVIDIA Jetson TX2 confirms the practicality of the method for embedded and edge-computing environments. These results indicate that the proposed scheme provides a secure, efficient, and hardware-friendly solution for modern image encryption applications.

PMID:41083577 | DOI:10.1038/s41598-025-21604-3

Sci Rep. 2025 Oct 13;15(1):35750. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-20590-w.

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to investigate the presence of neuropathic pain and its associated factors in patients diagnosed with the hemoglobinopathies thalassemia major (TM) and sickle cell disease (SCD). This study included 27 patients with TM and 30 patients with SCD who presented to the neurology clinic between 2022 and 2023. All participants had normal electromyography (EMG) findings and nerve conduction studies. Patients aged between 20 and 50 years were evaluated for neuropathic pain using the Neuropathic Pain Scale (DNET-4). Data were analyzed in relation to age, sex, smoking status, hemoglobin levels, platelet count, ferritin levels, presence of depression, use of hydroxyurea and chelation therapy, and splenectomy status. Depression was assessed using the Beck Depression Inventory. Patients with neuropathy due to anatomical pathology, lumbar disc herniation, diabetes mellitus, prior use of neurotoxic drugs, or clinical signs of peripheral nerve involvement were excluded from the study. The mean age was 29.22 years in the TM group and 32.03 years in the SCD group (p = 0.010). Neuropathic pain was reported by 37.1% of patients with TM and 46.7% of those with SCD, with higher pain scores tending to occur in the sickle cell group (p = 0.069). A statistically significant difference and moderate positive correlation were found between neuropathic pain and hydroxyurea treatment (p < 0.01). No significant difference was observed between the groups in terms of depression levels (p = 0.63); however, a strong positive correlation was found between depression severity and neuropathic pain scores (p < 0.001). As depression levels increased, neuropathic pain severity also increased. The TM group had significantly lower hemoglobin levels (8.21 ± 0.92 g/dL) compared to the SCD group (10.03 ± 1.45 g/dL) (p < 0.001). Ferritin levels were significantly higher in the TM group (2678 ± 1689 ng/mL) than in the sickle cell group (580 ± 689 ng/mL) (p < 0.001). No statistically significant associations were observed between neuropathic pain and chelation therapy, splenectomy, or smoking status. Neuropathic pain in patients with TM and SCD was significantly associated with depression severity. Hydroxyurea treatment showed a moderate association with neuropathic pain in patients with SCD, potentially reflecting greater disease burden. These findings underscored the importance of comprehensive clinical evaluation, including both neurological and psychological assessments, in the management of these patients.

PMID:41083566 | DOI:10.1038/s41598-025-20590-w

Sci Rep. 2025 Oct 13;15(1):35604. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-17699-3.

ABSTRACT

The increasing adoption of Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) within intelligent transportation systems has amplified concerns over cybersecurity threats in the Internet of Vehicles (IoV). To address the limitations of centralized Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS), we propose an Adaptive Personalized Federated Learning (APFed) model integrated with a Lightweight Depthwise Convolutional Bottleneck Network (LDwCBN). The system is designed to ensure privacy-preserving, resource-efficient, and accurate intrusion detection under heterogeneous and non-IID data conditions. APFed enhances model personalization and generalization through fine-grained adaptive updates and dynamic weight fusion, while LDwCBN improves detection speed and efficiency on constrained vehicular hardware. Extensive evaluations on benchmark datasets, including CIC-IDS2017, CSE-CIC-IDS2018, Car-Hacking, and CAN-Train-Test, demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms several state-of-the-art federated IDS approaches. Specifically, it achieves accuracy improvements of up to 5% over FedAvg and FedProx models, with significant gains in precision (up to 4%), recall (up to 3%), and F1-Score (up to 4%).

PMID:41083537 | DOI:10.1038/s41598-025-17699-3

Sci Rep. 2025 Oct 13;15(1):35640. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-19659-3.

ABSTRACT

Given the continued emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern as well as unprecedented vaccine development, it is crucial to understand the effect of updated vaccine formulations at the population level. While bivalent formulations developed during 2022 have had higher efficacy in vaccine trials, translating these findings to real-world effectiveness is challenging due to diversity in immune history, especially in settings with a high degree of natural immunity. Known socioeconomic disparities in key metrics such as vaccine coverage, social distancing, and access to healthcare have likely shaped the development and distribution of this immune landscape. Yet little has been done to investigate the impact of booster formulation in the context of host heterogeneity. Here, we present work undertaken in 2022-2023 to inform the World Health Organization’s Immunization and Vaccines Related Implementation Research Advisory Committee (IVIR-AC), at a time when policymakers were considering optimal boosting strategies. Using two complementary mathematical models that capture host demographics and immune histories over time, we investigated the potential impacts of bivalent and monovalent boosters, inspired by disease dynamics in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). These models allowed us to test the role of natural immunity and cross-protection in determining optimal booster strategy. Our results show that in hypothetical populations with high pre-existing immunity in the 2022-23 season, disease-related deaths from a new variant would be more sensitive to boosting/no boosting than booster formulation (bivalent vs. monovalent) – and if using bivalent formulations would result in delayed implementation compared to monovalent, it would almost always be better to implement monovalent immediately. However, deaths might be more sensitive to bivalent formulations in populations with low pre-existing immunity. These findings suggest that for many places where acquiring new vaccine stock may be economically prohibitive, monovalent boosters could still have been implemented where pre-existing immunity was high. While this analysis focuses on policy concerns in 2022, these results remain relevant now amidst ongoing questions about optimal booster formulation and timing to combat emerging transmission waves of COVID-19.

PMID:41083528 | DOI:10.1038/s41598-025-19659-3