Male patients commencing FOLFOX / FOLFIRI chemotherapy in 2014, descriptive statistics

Background: Metastatic colorectal cancer is an incurable illness; however the advent of chemotherapy has significantly improved survival and symptom control. FOLFOX and FOLFIRI are used at SPBOH as the standard of care for patients with metastatic disease. No statistical data is available on that cohort of patients; this study aims to establish a population data-set for patients on FOLFOX/FOLFIRI. Methods: This retrospective cross-sectional study included all patients on FOLFOX and FOLFIRI in 2014. Only male patients were included, data was retrospectively extracted from the ward’s logbook and ISOFT clinical manager. Cycle 1, 6 and 12 dates were documented. Data was analysed using clinically reliable statistical tools, all reported p-values were statistically significant at <0.05. Results: From a total of 108 patients, 4 patients were excluded from the analysis. The average age of patients was 65.2 years. The average length of 12 cycles was 24.5 weeks. 19% of patients had cycles longer than 7 months whereas only 10% lasted more than 8 months on treatment. 41% of patients dropped out before completing the full course with a complication and mortality rate of 17%. Patients on FOLFIRI were more likely to have their chemotherapy changed and were also more likely to have received previous treatment. Conclusion: Although chemotherapy increases survival in metastatic colorectal cancer we have to appreciate that many patients do not proceed smoothly with their treatment. Many of those patients are middle aged independent individuals, after-all the physician must draw the line at the appropriate time and focus on palliative care rather than continuing ineffectively with chemotherapy.peer-reviewe

Telespectrograph Patent

Telespectrograph for analyzing upper atmosphere by tracking bodies reentering atmosphere at high velocitie

Microstructure of Concrete

Concrete is a composite material that consists of a binding medium and aggregate particles and can be formed in several types. It may be considered to consist of three phases: a cement paste, the aggregate, and the interfacial transition zone (ITZ) between them. In addition to ordinary Portland cement, the essential components of the base of concrete are aggregates and water. For practical requirements, additives and admixtures can be added to these raw materials to improve some desirable characteristics. The following requirements should be considered in producing high performance concrete (HPC): (i) low water/cement (w/c) ratio; (ii) fine aggregate; (iii) large quantity of mineral additives, silica fume, and fly ash; (iv) high dosage of superplasticizer; and (v) high-pressure steam curing. The microstructure of high performance concrete (HPC) is more homogenous than that of normal concrete (NC) due to the physical and chemical contribution of the additives (silica fume and fly ash) as well as it is less porous due to reduced w/c ratio with the addition of a superplasticizer. Inclusion of additives (individually or in combination) helped in improving the strength and durability of concrete mixes due to the additional reduction in porosity of cement paste and an improved interface between it and the aggregate

The role of needs-supplies fit and job satisfaction in predicting employee engagement

Employee engagement has become a key concern for organizations as it provides value for sustainable competitive advantage. Fully engaged workforce is not only important in helping organizations flourish in good times but also relevant in helping organizations persevere during tough times. However, the main challenge for employers is to motivate and keep their employee engaged. Recent organizational behaviour studies emphasize the importance of environmental influences in understanding employees attitudes and behaviours. Consistent with this development, the present study seeks to examine the role of needs-supplies fit and job satisfaction in predicting employee engagement. Drawing from the self-in-role view and social exchange theory, it was hypothesized that needs-supplies fit predicts employee engagement, and the relationship between the two constructs is mediated by job satisfaction. Using a self-administered survey, data were obtained from 161 employees of a large public university in Malaysia. The results fully supported the hypothesized relationships. Implications for theory and practice are discussed

Exercise Therapy for Plantar Heel Pain: A Systematic Review

International Journal of Exercise Science 5(3) : 276-289, 2012. This study aimed to review the evidence of exercise therapy in the treatment of Plantar Heel Pain. Comprehensive search strategy was conducted to identify randomized and quasi-randomized trials. The primary outcome was pain intensity; the secondary outcome was functional limitation. From an initial list of 2327 potentially relevant trials, seven trials were included. Most trials included short-term follow up only of pain and function outcomes. Narrative review revealed limited evidence that stretching exercise alone was superior to other conservative treatments; combining other conservative treatments with stretching was more effective than stretching exercise alone. Limited evidence showed that supervised clinical-based exercise is more effective than home-based self exercise. There is limited evidence that adding stretching exercise to the conservative treatment is more effective than control/ sham therapy. Future trials should investigate the effectiveness of long-term treatment of stretching and other forms of exercise therapy on larger sample size

How workplace loneliness harms employee well-being:A moderated mediational model

This study investigated the effect of workplace loneliness on work-related subjective well-being by proposing work engagement as an explanatory mechanism in the workplace loneliness—job dissatisfaction relationship. Moreover, the study examines the need to belong as a coping mechanism in the relationship between workplace loneliness and work engagement. Specifically, the study posits that workplace loneliness reduces the positive and fulfilling state of work engagement that in turn increases job dissatisfaction and that this mediation depends on the employee’s level of need to belong. Data were collected from employees (N = 274) working in diverse domestic and multinational organizations in Lahore, Pakistan. Results showed that workplace loneliness reduced the work engagement of lonely individuals that in turn increased their job dissatisfaction. However, the deleterious effect of workplace loneliness on work engagement was weaker for individuals having a higher need to belong. These findings have important implications for organizations wishing to mitigate the harmful effects of workplace loneliness on employees’ subjective well-being.</p

How workplace loneliness harms employee well-being:A moderated mediational model

This study investigated the effect of workplace loneliness on work-related subjective well-being by proposing work engagement as an explanatory mechanism in the workplace loneliness—job dissatisfaction relationship. Moreover, the study examines the need to belong as a coping mechanism in the relationship between workplace loneliness and work engagement. Specifically, the study posits that workplace loneliness reduces the positive and fulfilling state of work engagement that in turn increases job dissatisfaction and that this mediation depends on the employee’s level of need to belong. Data were collected from employees (N = 274) working in diverse domestic and multinational organizations in Lahore, Pakistan. Results showed that workplace loneliness reduced the work engagement of lonely individuals that in turn increased their job dissatisfaction. However, the deleterious effect of workplace loneliness on work engagement was weaker for individuals having a higher need to belong. These findings have important implications for organizations wishing to mitigate the harmful effects of workplace loneliness on employees’ subjective well-being.</p

A Novel Method for Event Detection using Wireless Sensor Networks

Reliable event detection is one of the hottest research areas in the wireless sensor networks field these days. Battlefield monitoring, fire detection, nuclear and chemical attack, and gas leak detection are examples of the event detection applications. One of the main goals to WSNs is transmitting the sensed data to the sink (Base station) in an efficient way with minimum energy usage to achieve high degree of event detection reliability. Thus, Its very important to determine the reliability degree to know the number of data that are required to receive at the sink to achieve the desired reliability. Most of the previous research works proposed different solutions for reliable event detection. The idea of all these solutions is based on increasing the amount of the transmitted data to the sink by controlling the sources reporting rate. However, rising the reporting rate may lead to losing the transmitted data due to the network congestion and packets collision, and this is related to the restricted resources capacity of the network\u27s sensor nodes. Therefore, in this paper, a new indoor method to achieve quality based event reliability for critical event detection have been implemented using hardware sensor nodes (Waspmote). The idea of this method is depending on sending the sensed data to the sink using a node called Cluster Head (CH) in a sequence according to their priority from the high to the low. The network nodes have been deployed in the experiment area into clusters, and each cluster have a CH node which work on collecting the cluster members readings and reorder it in descending order to send it next to the sink. The probability to deliver the important data to detect the event to the sink will increase by using this new method. The proposed mechanism intends to improve the event detection reliability, minimize the end-to-end delay, and increase the network lifetime. Experiments results show that the proposed method achieved a good the performance in terms of packets delivery, event detection, and end-to-end delay

Psychometric Properties of the Job Engagement Scale: A Cross-Country Analysis

Job engagement is a motivational construct that refers to the willingness of employees to invest their physical, emotional and cognitive energies in their jobs in a holistic and simultaneous manner. Researchers use the Job Engagement Scale (JES) to measure the above conceptualization of job engagement, whose application is recent in job engagement research and is based largely on Western samples. In order to examine how job engagement is perceived in Asian contexts, this exploratory study aimed to provide a cross-country analysis of psychometric properties of the JES. We utilized data from earlier research of the first author, which were collected from 347 Pakistani and 498 Malaysian employees worked at diverse organizations. Psychometric analyses with reliability and validity estimations were performed using the Structural Equation Modeling. Results showed good internal consistency reliability, convergent validity and factorial validity of the JES for both Pakistani and Malaysian samples. However, psychometric properties of the JES for Pakistan outperformed those for Malaysia in all the estimations. Implications for future use of the JES and limitations of the study are discussed

Autoimmune Disease Presenting As Acute Abdomen

Mesenteric vasculitis and resultant bowel ischemia is rare but serious complication of autoimmune disorders. Early detection and treatment is the key to avoid potentially fatal outcomes of bowel perforation and peritonitis. In this series, we present patients presenting with acute abdominal pain and having CT imaging features of bowel ischemia who responded well to immunosuppressive therapy. The aim of this work is to familiarize health professionals with possibility and imaging features of mesenteric vasculitis