Implicit Attitudes of Asian American Older Adults Toward Aging

Greenwald, McGhee, and Schwartz (1998) developed the Implicit Association Test (IAT), a measure of mental associations between target pairs and positive or negative attributes. Highly associative categories yield faster responses than the reverse mental associations, which is thought to reflect implicit attitudes toward stereotypes. The present study investigated the effect of ethnic group on one’s implicit attitudes toward aging and gender stereotypes by comparing two groups of older adults, Asian Americans and Caucasian Americans, that likely hold different culture values. Past qualitative studies have established the existence of mental health stigma in Asian American populations, including negative Asian American perceptions of aging, but have not yet established a quantitative measure of this phenomenon. The age-attitude and gender-science IATs were administered to 20 Asian American and 20 Caucasian American older adults in the Southern California region. The results from the age-attitude IAT found that Asian American older adults demonstrated higher implicit bias toward aging, evidenced by faster responses to the category pairings associating “old” + “bad” and “young” + “good”. In contrast, performance on the gender-science IAT was similar for both groups, showing no strong bias toward gender stereotypes. Potential implications on the wellbeing of older adults, as stereotype threat and other forms of bias are already established harmful constructs in the population, are discussed

Medical tourism: a conceptual framework for an innovation in global healthcare provision

The purpose of this chapter is to establish a conceptual model that can potentially fill research gaps in the literature about medical tourism as an innovative concept in global healthcare provision by developing emerging economies as they are providing low cost alternatives in medical treatment at internationally accredited medical facilities to treat patients from developed countries. Major databases such as Ebscohost and Emerald have been used to search relevant literature. The literature on medical tourism is reviewed so as to understand the key drivers of medical tourism as well as research gaps in the existing literature. Three major drivers of medical tourism have been identified, namely cost, waiting time, and perceived quality. Further empirical research is needed to test the conceptual model in order to better understand what drives a decision to engage in medical tourism. This chapter makes three major contributions; firstly, the identification of the medical tourism literature from the service marketing and management perspectives; secondly, to propose a conceptual model representing innovation in medical tourism for global healthcare by developing emerging economies; thirdly, the identification of research gaps in the medical tourism literature through which future research can further the knowledge of why people travel to developing countries for medical treatment

Determinants of FDI inflow in Asia / Anita Hasli, Catherine S F Ho and Nurhani Aba Ibrahim.

The research analyses the determinants of FDI inflow in Asia for the period 1993-2013 and is based on the fixed effect model. The macroeconomic factors included are lending rate, GDP per capita, trade openness, debt, exchange rate, money supply and unemployment rate. The country specific factors included are adult literacy rate, gross fixed capital formation, domestic credit provided by the financial sector, environmental pollution and natural resources rents. The study applies panel unit root tests, panel cointegration analysis and panel regression analysis based on the fixed effect model to ascertain the significance of macroeconomic and country specific factors on FDI inflow in Asia. The study found that lending rate, trade openness and money supply have a positive significance to FDI per capita whereas debt, unemployment rate and environmental pollution have a negative significance to FDI per capita

Epitaxial Growth of Ge on Si by Magnetron Sputtering

Epitaxial growth of Ge on Si has received considerable attention for its compatibility with Si process flow and the scarcity of Ge compared with Si. Applications that drive the efforts for integrating Ge with Si include high mobility channel in metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors, infrared photodetector in Si-based optical devices, and template for III-V growth to fabricate high-efficiency solar cells. Epitaxy Ge on Si can be used as a virtual Ge substrate for fabrication of III-V solar cells, which has advantages of superior mechanical properties and low cost over Ge wafers. This work investigates the epitaxial growth of Ge on Si using magnetron sputtering, which is an environment-friendly, inexpensive, high throughput, and simple deposition technique. The effects of substrate temperature on the properties of Ge are analyzed. A novel method to epitaxially grow Ge on Si by magnetron sputtering at low temperature is developed using one-step aluminum-assisted crystallization. By applying an in-situ low temperature (50–150°C) heat treatment in between Al and Ge sputter depositions, the epitaxial growth of Ge on Si is achieved. This method significantly lowers the required temperature for and therefore the cost of epitaxial growth of Ge on Si

Comparison of trigger point injections versus traditional therapies in the management of post-surgical pain in patients who had anterior cervical surgery: A Retrospective Study

Introduction: The opioid epidemic has launched the United States into a public health crisis, resulting in a greater emphasis on non-opioid multimodal pain control methods. At our institution, postoperative posterior neck stiffness and myofascial pain is a common concern after anterior cervical discectomy and fusion or anterior cervical corpectomy with fusion surgery (hereinafter ACS), likely due to prolonged intraoperative positioning in neck extension. Studies have shown successful analgesic outcomes of trigger point injections with local anesthetic for generalized myofascial pain.1-2 This retrospective pilot study aimed to evaluate whether trigger point injections with bupivacaine decreases postsurgical pain compared with traditional therapies in patients undergoing ACS and thereby decrease the amount of opioid medication used. Methods: After IRB approval, we retrospectively reviewed medical records of all patients who received ACS from January 2019 to March 2020 at a single university hospital. We identified patients who received trigger point injections (TP) versus standard care (SC). We excluded patients if TP was performed \u3e3hr from surgery, in recovery for opioid use disorder, underwent a posterior approach, staged surgery, or sustained cervical trauma. The primary outcomes were pain control through the Visual Analog Scale (VAS) and calculated oral morphine equivalents (OME) taken at 6, 12, and 24 hours post-operatively. Secondary outcomes included length of stay (LOS). Results: 137 patients received anterior cervical surgery (100 SC, 37 TP), 62 were excluded. A total of 75 (47 SC, 28 TP) patients were included in this study. The average OME at 6 hours significantly decreased when comparing SC vs TP (32 vs 22, p=0.025). There was no significant difference in average VAS at all time points and average OME at 12 and 24 hours (Table 1). 50% of patients were discharged by 18 hours. Discussion: Our results suggest that TP with bupivacaine significantly reduce opioid consumption within 6 hours of the postoperative period, without increasing overall pain level. There is an opportunity for TP to be included in non-opioid multimodal pain regimens for postoperative myofascial neck pain, especially during the opioid crisis. Limitations of this retrospective study were the small number of study participants, that many patients were discharged before 18 hours and some may have been on chronic pain therapy. The identified limitations will help inform our future investigations and design a prospective randomized control study

Graduate String Quartet: Rainer Sachtelben, Violin; Joon Ho Kim, Violin; Jan Varney, Viola; Anita Bullard, Cello; May 19, 1971

Capen AuditoriumMay 19, 19718:15 p.m

Mesenchymal stem cells with increased stromal cell-derived factor 1 expression enhanced fracture healing

Treatment of critical size bone defects pose a challenge in orthopedics. Stem cell therapy together with cytokines has the potential to improve bone repair as they cause the migration and homing of stem cells to the defect site. However, the engraftment, participation, and recruitment of other cells within the regenerating tissue are important. To enhance stem cell involvement, this study investigated overexpression of stem cells with stromal cell-derived factor 1 (SDF-1) using an adenovirus. We hypothesized that these engineered cells would effectively increase the migration of native cells to the site of fracture, enhancing bone repair. Before implantation, we showed that SDF-1 secreted by transfected cells increased the migration of nontransfected cells. In a rat defect bone model, bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells overexpressing SDF-1 showed significantly (p=0.003) more new bone formation within the gap and less bone mineral loss at the area adjacent to the defect site during the early bone healing stage. In conclusion, SDF-1 was shown to play an important role in accelerating fracture repair and contributing to bone repair in rat models, by recruiting more host stem cells to the defect site and encouraging osteogenic differentiation and production of bone

Mechanical adhesion of SIO2 thin film on a polymeric substrate under compressive stress

International audienceTo ensure good adhesion between a 200 nm silicon dioxide layer and a 4.5 μm thick hardcoat polymeric coating, a better understanding of mechanisms of adhesion at this interface is needed. To reach this purpose, quantification of adhesion is performed by analyzing SiO2 buckle morphologies generated under compressive stress. This adhesion test was chosen for its representativeness of defects observed in real life. Interfacial toughness can be determined by applying Hutchinson & Suo model. This analytical model involves accurate value of elastic modulus Ef of SiO2 thin film. Small dimensions at stake make characterization of elastic modulus challenging. First part of the study focuses on using both nano-indentation and AFM to attempt assessment of SiO2 thin film elastic modulus. Results showed significant influence of substrate for both techniques. Impact on mechanical properties between SiO2 thin films with different intrinsic stresses was also investigated and suggests that higher density of SiO2 thin film leads to higher elastic modulus. Compression tests resulted in formation of straight-sided buckles that evolve into telephone cords upon unloading. Numerical simulation and Digital Image Correlation were implemented to ensure homogeneous strain of substrate and favor regular distribution of buckles. Values of energy release rates of SiO2 / Hardcoat range from 2.7 J/m² to 8.9 J/m², depending on moduli values found on wafer or lens substrate

Graduate String Quartet Recital: Joon-Ho Kim, Violin; Rainer Sachtleben, Violin; Jan Varney, Viola; Anita Bullard, Cello; Annette Sachtleben, Cello; March 25, 1971

Capen AuditoriumMarch 25, 19718:15 p.m