The construct validity and reliability of the Turkish version of Spreitzer's psychological empowerment scale

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Today, many organizations have adopted some kind of empowerment initiative for at least part of their workforce. Over the last two decades, two complementary perspectives on empowerment at work have emerged: structural and psychological empowerment. Psychological empowerment is a motivational construct manifested in four cognitions: meaning, competence, self-determination and impact. The aim of this article is to examine the construct validity and reliability of the Turkish translation of Spreitzer's psychological empowerment scale in a culturally diverse environment.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The scale contains four dimensions over 12 statements. Data were gathered from 260 nurses and 161 physicians. The dimensionality of the scale was evaluated by exploratory factor analyses. To investigate the multidimensional nature of the empowerment construct and the validity of the scale, first- and second-order confirmatory factor analysis was conducted. Furthermore, Cronbach alpha coefficients were assessed to investigate reliability.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Exploratory factor analyses revealed that four factors in both solutions. The first- and second-order factor analysis indicated an acceptable fit between the data and the theoretical model for nurses and physicians. Cronbach alpha coefficients varied between 0.81-0.94 for both groups, which may be considered satisfactory.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The analyses indicated that the psychometric properties of the Turkish version of the scale can be considered satisfactory.</p

South Asians living in the UK and adherence to coronary heart disease medication: a mixed- method study.

Background The prevalence of coronary heart disease amongst South Asian population in the UK is higher compared to the general population. Objective This study sought to investigate beliefs and experiences of South Asian patients regarding coronary heart disease and medication taking behaviour. Setting A London Heart Attack Centre. Methods This mixed method study is part of an original pilot randomised study on 71 patients involving a pharmacy-led intervention to improve medication adherence in coronary heart disease patients. South Asian patients from the randomised study took part in qualitative semi-structured telephone interviews. Both South Asian and non-South Asian patients completed the questionnaire about adherence and beliefs regarding medicines using Morisky Scale and the Belief About Medicines Questionnaire-Specific at 2 weeks, 3 and 6 months. Outcome Patients' beliefs about coronary heart disease and medication adherence. Results Seventeen South Asian patients and 54 non-South Asian patients took part. Qualitative data from 14 South Asian patients showed that while some attributed coronary heart disease to genetic, family history for their illness, others attributed it to their dietary patterns and 'god's will' and that little could be done to prevent further episodes of coronary heart disease. On the Belief About Medicines Questionnaire-Specific in South Asian patients, beliefs about necessity of medicines outweighed concerns. South Asian patients (n = 17) showed a similar pattern of adherence compared to non-Asian patients (n = 54). Adherence decreased with time in both populations, adherence measured by Morisky Scale. Conclusion South Asian patients in this study often attributed coronary heart disease to additional causes besides the known risk factors. Future studies on their understanding of the importance of cultural context in their attitudes to prevention and lived experience of the disease is warranted

Influence of adding multiwalled carbon nanotubes on the adhesive strength of composite epoxy/sol–gel materials

The tensile shear strength of a composite epoxy/sol–gel system modified with different ratios of multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) was evaluated using a mechanical testing machine. The experimental results showed that the shear strength increased when lower than ~0.07 wt% of MWCNTs were added in the composite solution. The increase of the shear strength was attributed to both the mechanical load transfer from the matrix to the MWCNTs and the high specific surface area of this material that increased the degree of crosslinking with other inorganic fillers in the formulation. However, a decrease in the adhesive shear strength was observed after more than ~0.07 wt% MWCNTs were added to the composite. The reason for this may be related to the high concentration of MWCNTs within the matrix leading to excessively high viscosity, dewetting of the substrate surfaces, and reduced bonding of MWCNTs with the matrix, thereby limiting the strength. SEM observation of the fracture surfaces for composite epoxy/sol–gel adhesive materials with 0.01 wt% MWCNTs showed a mixed interfacial/cohesive fracture mode. This fracture mode indicated strong links at the adhesive/substrate interface, and interaction between CNTs and the matrix was achieved; therefore, adhesion performance of the composite epoxy/sol–gel material to the substrate was improved. An increase of a strong peak related to the C–O bond at ~1733 cm-1 in the FTIR spectra was observed. This peak represented crosslinking between the CNT surface and the organosilica nanoparticles in the MWCNTs-doped composite adhesive. Raman spectroscopy was also used to identify MWCNTs within the adhesive material. The Raman spectra exhibit peaks at ~1275 cm-1 and in the range of ~1549–1590 cm-1. The former is the graphite G-band, while the latter is the diamond D-band. The D-band and G-band represent the C–C single bond and C=C double bond in carbon nanotubes, respectively

Post hoc pattern matching: assigning significance to statistically defined expression patterns in single channel microarray data

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Researchers using RNA expression microarrays in experimental designs with more than two treatment groups often identify statistically significant genes with ANOVA approaches. However, the ANOVA test does not discriminate which of the multiple treatment groups differ from one another. Thus, <it>post hoc </it>tests, such as linear contrasts, template correlations, and pairwise comparisons are used. Linear contrasts and template correlations work extremely well, especially when the researcher has <it>a priori </it>information pointing to a particular pattern/template among the different treatment groups. Further, all pairwise comparisons can be used to identify particular, treatment group-dependent patterns of gene expression. However, these approaches are biased by the researcher's assumptions, and some treatment-based patterns may fail to be detected using these approaches. Finally, different patterns may have different probabilities of occurring by chance, importantly influencing researchers' conclusions about a pattern and its constituent genes.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We developed a four step, <it>post hoc </it>pattern matching (PPM) algorithm to automate single channel gene expression pattern identification/significance. First, 1-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), coupled with <it>post hoc </it>'all pairwise' comparisons are calculated for all genes. Second, for each ANOVA-significant gene, all pairwise contrast results are encoded to create unique pattern ID numbers. The # genes found in each pattern in the data is identified as that pattern's 'actual' frequency. Third, using Monte Carlo simulations, those patterns' frequencies are estimated in random data ('random' gene pattern frequency). Fourth, a Z-score for overrepresentation of the pattern is calculated ('actual' against 'random' gene pattern frequencies). We wrote a Visual Basic program (StatiGen) that automates PPM procedure, constructs an Excel workbook with standardized graphs of overrepresented patterns, and lists of the genes comprising each pattern. The visual basic code, installation files for StatiGen, and sample data are available as supplementary material.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The PPM procedure is designed to augment current microarray analysis procedures by allowing researchers to incorporate all of the information from post hoc tests to establish unique, overarching gene expression patterns in which there is no overlap in gene membership. In our hands, PPM works well for studies using from three to six treatment groups in which the researcher is interested in treatment-related patterns of gene expression. Hardware/software limitations and extreme number of theoretical expression patterns limit utility for larger numbers of treatment groups. Applied to a published microarray experiment, the StatiGen program successfully flagged patterns that had been manually assigned in prior work, and further identified other gene expression patterns that may be of interest. Thus, over a moderate range of treatment groups, PPM appears to work well. It allows researchers to assign statistical probabilities to patterns of gene expression that fit <it>a priori </it>expectations/hypotheses, it preserves the data's ability to show the researcher interesting, yet unanticipated gene expression patterns, and assigns the majority of ANOVA-significant genes to non-overlapping patterns.</p

Diet and BMI correlate with metabolite patterns associated with aggressive prostate cancer

Three metabolite patterns have previously shown prospective inverse associations with the risk of aggressive prostate cancer within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC). Here, we investigated dietary and lifestyle correlates of these three prostate cancer-related metabolite patterns, which included: 64 phosphatidylcholines and three hydroxysphingomyelins (Pattern 1), acylcarnitines C18:1 and C18:2, glutamate, ornithine, and taurine (Pattern 2), and 8 lysophosphatidylcholines (Pattern 3). In a two-stage cross-sectional discovery (n = 2524) and validation (n = 518) design containing 3042 men free of cancer in EPIC, we estimated the associations of 24 dietary and lifestyle variables with each pattern and the contributing individual metabolites. Associations statistically significant after both correction for multiple testing (False Discovery Rate = 0.05) in the discovery set and at p < 0.05 in the validation set were considered robust. Intakes of alcohol, total fish products, and its subsets total fish and lean fish were positively associated with Pattern 1. Body mass index (BMI) was positively associated with Pattern 2, which appeared to be driven by a strong positive BMI-glutamate association. Finally, both BMI and fatty fish were inversely associated with Pattern 3. In conclusion, these results indicate associations of fish and its subtypes, alcohol, and BMI with metabolite patterns that are inversely associated with risk of aggressive prostate cance

Wnt signaling in triple-negative breast cancer

Wnt signaling regulates a variety of cellular processes, including cell fate, differentiation, proliferation and stem cell pluripotency. Aberrant Wnt signaling is a hallmark of many cancers. An aggressive subtype of breast cancer, known as triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), demonstrates dysregulation in canonical and non-canonical Wnt signaling. In this review, we summarize regulators of canonical and non-canonical Wnt signaling, as well as Wnt signaling dysfunction that mediates the progression of TNBC. We review the complex molecular nature of TNBC and the emerging therapies that are currently under investigation for the treatment of this disease

Pan-cancer analysis of whole genomes

Cancer is driven by genetic change, and the advent of massively parallel sequencing has enabled systematic documentation of this variation at the whole-genome scale(1-3). Here we report the integrative analysis of 2,658 whole-cancer genomes and their matching normal tissues across 38 tumour types from the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium of the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). We describe the generation of the PCAWG resource, facilitated by international data sharing using compute clouds. On average, cancer genomes contained 4-5 driver mutations when combining coding and non-coding genomic elements; however, in around 5% of cases no drivers were identified, suggesting that cancer driver discovery is not yet complete. Chromothripsis, in which many clustered structural variants arise in a single catastrophic event, is frequently an early event in tumour evolution; in acral melanoma, for example, these events precede most somatic point mutations and affect several cancer-associated genes simultaneously. Cancers with abnormal telomere maintenance often originate from tissues with low replicative activity and show several mechanisms of preventing telomere attrition to critical levels. Common and rare germline variants affect patterns of somatic mutation, including point mutations, structural variants and somatic retrotransposition. A collection of papers from the PCAWG Consortium describes non-coding mutations that drive cancer beyond those in the TERT promoter(4); identifies new signatures of mutational processes that cause base substitutions, small insertions and deletions and structural variation(5,6); analyses timings and patterns of tumour evolution(7); describes the diverse transcriptional consequences of somatic mutation on splicing, expression levels, fusion genes and promoter activity(8,9); and evaluates a range of more-specialized features of cancer genomes(8,10-18).Peer reviewe