Patients’ Perspectives, Experiences, and Concerns With Perianal Fistulae:Insights From Online Targeted-Disease Forums

Background: Perianal fistulae can undermine physical, emotional, and social well-being in patients with Crohn’s disease and are challenging to manage. Social media offers a rich opportunity to gain an in-depth understanding of the impact of perianal fistulae on patients’ daily lives outside of controlled environments. In this study, we conducted social media analytics to examine patients’ experiences with perianal fistulae and assessed the impact of perianal fistulae on patients’ behavior and overall well-being. Methods: We used a mixed-method approach to examine 119 986 publicly available posts collected from 10 Crohn’s disease forums in the United States between January 01, 2010 and January 01, 2020. Discussions related to Crohn’s perianal fistulae were retrieved. We randomly selected 700 posts and qualitatively analyzed them using an inductive thematic approach. We then applied a latent Dirichlet allocation probabilistic topic model to explore themes in an unsupervised manner on the collection of 119 986 posts. Results: In the qualitative analysis, 5 major themes were identified: (1) burden of perianal fistula; (2) challenges associated with treatment; (3) online information seeking and sharing; (4) patient experiences with treatments; and (5) patients’ apprehension about treatments. In the quantitative analysis, the percentages of posts related to the major themes were (1) 20%, (2) 29%, (3) 66%, and (4) 28%, while the topic model did not identify theme 5. Conclusions: Social media reveals a dynamic range of themes governing patients’ perspectives and experiences with Crohn’s perianal fistulae. In addition to the biopsychosocial burden, patients frequently express dissatisfaction with current treatments and often struggle to navigate among available management options.</p

Simulation Study on Multipassed Welding Distortion of Combined Joint Types using Thermo-Elastic-Plastic FEM

This paper investigates the angular distortion induced by the gas metal arc welding (GMAW) process on the combined butt and T-joint with a thickness of 9 mm. The material used in this study was low manganese carbon steel S355J2G3. A 2-D and 3-D thermo-elastic-plastic finite element (FE) analysis has been developed to simulate the induced distortion of multipassed welding. In this research, SYSWELD 2010 with its computation management tool, known as multipassed welding advisor (MPA), was applied to analyze the distortion behavior of combined joint types. To model the heat source of GMAW, Goldak's double ellipsoid representation, which is available within this finite element analysis (FEA) code was selected. Prior to the results discussion, this paper also shows the step-bystep procedures to simulate combined jointing which begins with metallurgical and customized heat source modeling, and is followed by creating geometrical mesh using Visual-Mesh 6.5 for analyzing and processing the results. Apart from 2-D and 3-D comparison analysis, the final objective of this research is also aimed to be a baseline study to provide preliminary information in preparing the tools and equipment for experimental investigation