Analysis of turnover intention and influencing factors among female nurses with two children in Grade A tertiary public hospitals in Sichuan province: a cross-sectional study

ObjectiveThis study aims to examine the current status of turnover intention among female nurses with two children and explore the factors influencing their decision to resign, ultimately providing a basis for reducing nurses’ turnover intention and stabilizing the nursing workforce.MethodsA convenience sampling method was used to select 1,370 in-service female nurses with two children from 65 Grade A tertiary public hospitals in Sichuan Province from September to December 2023. Data was collected through a general information questionnaire, work-family behavioral role conflict scale, regulatory emotional self-efficacy, and turnover intention scale.ResultsThis study revealed that the average score for turnover intention among female nurses with two children was (13.11 ± 3.93). There was a positive correlation between work-family behavioral role conflict and turnover intention (r = 0.485, p < 0.01), while regulatory emotional self-efficacy showed a negative correlation with turnover intention (r = −0.382, p < 0.01). The main influencing factors for resignation among these nurses included age, number of night shifts per month, average monthly income, primary caregiver for children, work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict, and the ability to express positive emotions (POS), the capacity to regulate negative emotions such as despondency/distress (DES), and the skill to manage anger/irritation (ANG). Collectively, these factors explained 29.5% of the total variance in turnover intention scores.ConclusionTurnover intention among female nurses with two children is relatively high. To address this issue, hospital managers shall implement effective measures through various channels to settle work–family conflict, enhance nurses’ regulatory emotional self-efficacy, and reduce turnover intention resulting from work–family conflict. Together, these efforts will reduce nurse turnover and foster a stable nursing workforce

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Resilient Frequency Control for Renewable-Energy Distributed Systems Considering Demand-Side Resources

Extreme natural disasters can force microgrids into islanded operation, where low system inertia and asynchronous, time-varying communication delays present severe challenges to frequency stability. These challenges threaten not only short-term reliability but also the sustainable operation of renewable-dominated energy systems. Existing frequency control methods are often unable to robustly handle heterogeneous delays, thereby limiting the resilience of power systems with high shares of renewables. To address this issue, we propose a parametric Riccati equation-based frequency control method that adaptively adjusts control parameters to balance system robustness and optimality under asynchronous delays. Controller stability is guaranteed by Barbalat’s lemma. The main contributions include: (i) developing a microgrid frequency control model that incorporates asynchronous delays, (ii) designing a delay-aware controller using the parametric Riccati equation, and (iii) validating its effectiveness on a modified New England 39-bus system. Simulation results confirm that the proposed method enhances frequency stability under disaster-induced islanding scenarios. By ensuring robust and reliable operation of renewable-rich power systems, the proposed approach contributes to the sustainable integration of renewable energy, reduces blackout risks, and supports long-term environmental and socio-economic sustainability goals

Identification of MicroRNAs Involved in Growth Arrest and Apoptosis in Hydrogen Peroxide-Treated Human Hepatocellular Carcinoma Cell Line HepG2

Although both oxidative stress and microRNAs (miRNAs) play vital roles in physiological and pathological processes, little is known about the interactions between them. In this study, we first described the regulation of H2O2 in cell viability, proliferation, cycle, and apoptosis of human hepatocellular carcinoma cell line HepG2. Then, miRNAs expression was profiled after H2O2 treatment. The results showed that high concentration of H2O2 (600 μM) could decrease cell viability, inhibit cell proliferation, induce cell cycle arrest, and finally promote cell apoptosis. Conversely, no significant effects could be found under treatment with low concentration (30 μM). miRNAs array analysis identified 131 differentially expressed miRNAs (125 were upregulated and 6 were downregulated) and predicted 13504 putative target genes of the deregulated miRNAs. Gene ontology (GO) analysis revealed that the putative target genes were associated with H2O2-induced cell growth arrest and apoptosis. The subsequent bioinformatics analysis indicated that H2O2-response pathways, including MAPK signaling pathway, apoptosis, and pathways in cancer and cell cycle, were significantly affected. Overall, these results provided comprehensive information on the biological function of H2O2 treatment in HepG2 cells. The identification of miRNAs and their putative targets may offer new diagnostic and therapeutic strategies for liver cancer

The Effects and Mechanisms of Continuous 7-Day Hypobaric Hypoxia Exposure on Sleep Architecture in Rats

High-altitude environments pose significant risks for insomnia development, which severely compromises both physiological health and occupational performance. To elucidate the mechanisms underlying altitude-induced sleep disruption and establish a validated animal model for therapeutic intervention development, we exposed Sprague-Dawley rats to hypobaric hypoxia (5500 m altitude equivalent: 308 mmHg, 20.37% O2, PiO2 8.0 kPa) for 7 days. We employed continuous wireless telemetry to monitor EEG/EMG signals, with concurrent analysis of physiological parameters, blood biochemistry, histopathology, transcriptomics, and protein expression. Quantitative analyses demonstrated decreased caloric intake, transient body mass reduction, and immune-metabolic disturbances. While total sleep duration showed no significant variation, sleep architecture displayed elevated wakefulness periods, reduced active wakefulness, a decreasing trend of slow-wave sleep (SWS), and increased paradoxical sleep (PS) accompanied by attenuated circadian oscillations. The duration of SWS episodes was significantly shortened, indicating a sleep homeostasis imbalance that peaked on day 3. Biochemical profiling revealed reduced levels of antioxidant enzymes, elevated pro-inflammatory cytokines, and hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis activation. Transcriptomic analyses identified the critical involvement of serotonergic/glutamatergic synaptic regulation, lipid metabolism, IL-17 signaling, and cortisol synthesis pathways. Western blot analyses confirmed OX2R upregulation, 5-HT1AR downregulation, and circadian gene dysregulation. Our findings demonstrate that hypobaric hypoxia induces sleep disruption via coordinated mechanisms involving oxidative stress, inflammatory activation, HPA axis hyperactivity, neurotransmitter imbalance, and circadian clock dysfunction, providing a robust preclinical model for mechanistic exploration and therapeutic target identification

Daytime Dysfunction: Symptoms Associated with Nervous System Disorders Mediated by SIRT1

Daytime dysfunction, including symptoms like sleepiness, poor memory, and reduced responsiveness, is not well researched. It is crucial to develop animal models and study the biological mechanisms involved. We simulated sleep disorders through sleep deprivation, and stressful stimuli were used to establish daytime functional animal models. We used tests like the sodium pentobarbital sleep synergy test and the DSI telemetry system to measure sleep duration and structure. We also used tests like the Morris water maze, open field test, grip test, and baton twirling test to assess mental and physical fatigue. To assess the intrinsic biological mechanisms, we measured sleep–wake-related neurotransmitters and related receptor proteins, circadian rhythm-related proteins and cognition-related proteins in hypothalamus tissue, and oxidative stress, inflammatory factors, S100β, and HPA axis-related indexes in serum. Multi-factor sleep deprivation resulted in the disruption of sleep–wakefulness structure, memory–cognitive function degradation, decreased grip coordination, and other manifestations of decreased energetic and physical strength. The intrinsic biological mechanisms were related to the disturbed expression of sleep–wake, circadian rhythm, memory–cognition-related proteins, as well as the significant elevation of inflammatory factors, oxidative stress, the HPA axis, and other related indicators. Intrinsically related biological mechanisms and reduced sirt1 expression can lead to disruption of circadian rhythms; resulting in disruption of their sleep–wake-related neurotransmitter content and receptor expression. Meanwhile, the reduced expression of sirt1 also resulted in reduced expression of synapse-associated proteins. This study prepared an animal model of daytime dysfunction by means of multi-factor sleep deprivation. With sirt1 as a core target, the relevant biological mechanisms of neurological disorders were modulated

Transcriptomic analysis reveals the molecular basis of photoperiod-regulated sex differentiation in tropical pumpkins (Cucurbita moschata Duch.)

Abstract Background Photoperiod, or the length of the day, has a significant impact on the flowering and sex differentiation of photoperiod-sensitive crops. The “miben” pumpkin (the main type of Cucurbita moschata Duch.) is well-known for its high yield and strong disease resistance. However, its cultivation has been limited due to its sensitivity to photoperiod. This sensitivity imposes challenges on its widespread cultivation and may result in suboptimal yields in regions with specific daylength conditions. As a consequence, efforts are being made to explore potential strategies or breeding techniques to enhance its adaptability to a broader range of photoperiods, thus unlocking its full cultivation potential and further promoting its valuable traits in agriculture. Results This study aimed to identify photoperiod-insensitive germplasm exhibiting no difference in sex differentiation under different day-length conditions. The investigation involved a phenotypic analysis of photoperiod-sensitive (PPS) and photoperiod-insensitive (PPIS) pumpkin materials exposed to different day lengths, including long days (LDs) and short days (SDs). The results revealed that female flower differentiation was significantly inhibited in PPS_LD, while no differences were observed in the other three groups (PPS_SD, PPIS_LD, and PPIS_SD). Transcriptome analysis was carried out for these four groups to explore the main-effect genes of sex differentiation responsive to photoperiod. The main-effect gene subclusters were identified based on the principal component and hierarchical cluster analyses. Further, functional annotations and enrichment analysis revealed significant upregulation of photoreceptors (CmCRY1, F-box/kelch-repeat protein), circadian rhythm-related genes (CmGI, CmPRR9, etc.), and CONSTANS (CO) in PPS_LD. Conversely, a significant downregulation was observed in most Nuclear Factor Y (NF-Y) transcription factors. Regarding the gibberellic acid (GA) signal transduction pathway, positive regulators of GA signaling (CmSCL3, CmSCL13, and so forth) displayed higher expression levels, while the negative regulators of GA signaling, CmGAI, exhibited lower expression levels in PPS_LD. Notably, this effect was not observed in the synthetic pathway genes. Furthermore, genes associated with ethylene synthesis and signal transduction (CmACO3, CmACO1, CmERF118, CmERF118-like1,2, CmWIN1-like, and CmRAP2-7-like) showed significant downregulation. Conclusions This study offered a crucial theoretical and genetic basis for understanding how photoperiod influences the mechanism of female flower differentiation in pumpkins

A Randomized Crossover Study Comparing the Effects of Diabetes-Specific Formula with Common Asian Breakfasts on Glycemic Control and Satiety in Adults with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Postprandial hyperglycemia was shown to be an independent risk factor for microvascular and macrovascular complications in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D). We aimed to investigate the glucose, insulin, and subjective appetite at 0, 15, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, 150, and 180 min of three treatments: diabetes-specific formula (DSF), noodle soup, and glutinous rice. This was a randomized, crossover study with a one-week interval between treatments. Sixty-four T2D adults with oral glucose-lowering medication and HbA1c between 7% and <10% were randomized. The glucose positive area under the curve from 0 to 180 min (pAUC) was significantly lower with DSF than with glutinous rice (LSM ± SE: DSF 354 ± 32 vs. glutinous rice 451 ± 32 mmol.min/L, p = 0.033). The insulin pAUC was significantly lower with DSF (median [IQR]: 2733 [1542, 4204]) compared to glutinous rice (3359 [2193, 4744] µIU.min/mL), p = 0.042). The insulinogenic index at 30 min was significantly higher in DSF (median [IQR], 8.1 [4.2, 19.7]) compared to glutinous rice (5.4 [2.7, 11.7], p < 0.001). No significant differences were found in subjective appetite between the three treatments (all, p ≥ 0.827). There were also no significant differences in hunger, fullness, desire to eat, and prospective consumption ratings between DSF and the other two breakfasts (all p ≥ 0.181). Noodle soup led to the shortest time for hunger to return to baseline (165 min), 21 min earlier than DSF (186 min) and 32 min earlier than glutinous rice (197 min). DSF significantly reduced postprandial glucose and insulin responses compared with glutinous rice and had a higher satiating value than noodle soup in T2D adults. Replacing common Asian breakfasts with DSF may improve glycemia and hunger control