MATERIALISM AMONG TEENAGERS, THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TERMINAL VALUES AND SOCIAL MEDIA USE

The aim of present study was to investigate the relationship between terminal values, the materialism, and usage of social media among high school teenagers in Budapest, Hungary. Research findings contribute to consumer studies regarding the teenagers terminal value preferences and the relationship between values and materialism. Furthermore the study investigates social media use effect on materialistic attitude. For data collection a paper an pencil questionnaire was applied in June 2017. The sampling was a nonrepresentative, convenience and purposive sampling. The survey included three major scales. Respondents rated the importance of terminal values provided by the List of Values scale (Kahle et al 1986). The materialism scale conducted was the adaption of Youth Materialism Scale (Goldberg et al 2003) measuring teenagers’ attachment to material goods. The social media usage was measured by a Uses and Gratification Scale (Sheldon & Bryant, 2016) reporting the frequency of use for different purposes. The major findings are the significant correlations between the sense of security and being well-respected values and materialism factors. Using the adopted Uses and Gratification Scale the recent study provides similar component structure than the authors of U&G scale. The influence of social media observation on the strength of materialism was lso proved

A cross-national study of the ecological worldview of senior consumers

This paper presents the results of a cross‐national study into the ecological worldview of senior consumers using the N ew E cological P aradigm (NEP ) scale. It was designed to examine the extent to which senior respondents in the UK , G ermany, J apan and H ungary are endorsing the NEP scale and which factors determine NEP in the four countries under study. Our study is the first of its kind to measure the ecological worldview of older consumers across different nations. Examinations of the overall frequency and mean distributions of the NEP scale showed that the majority of seniors in each country support the NEP statements, but there is no general support for pro‐NEP orientation. The relationship between values [using list of values (LOV ) scale] and environmental attitudes was tested through a series of regression analyses calculated separately for each country. According to the results, a very weak relationship between some of the LOV values and the NEP scale was found in all the samples. Our study contributes to both cross‐cultural environmental attitude research and to consumer studies in general

Research design considerations for randomized controlled trials of spinal cord stimulation for pain: IMMPACT/ION/INS recommendations

Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) is an interventional non-pharmacologic treatment used for chronic pain and other indications. Methods for evaluating the safety and efficacy of SCS have evolved from uncontrolled and retrospective studies to prospective randomized controlled trials (RCTs). While randomization overcomes certain types of bias, additional challenges to the validity of RCTs of SCS include blinding, choice of control groups, non-specific effects of treatment variables (e.g., paresthesia, device programming and recharging, psychological support, and rehabilitative techniques), and safety considerations. In order to address these challenges, three professional societies (IMMPACT, ION, INS) convened a meeting to develop consensus recommendations on the design, conduct, analysis, and interpretation of RCTs of SCS for chronic pain. This paper summarizes the results of this meeting. Highlights of our recommendations include disclosing all funding source and potential conflicts; incorporating mechanistic objectives when possible; avoiding non-inferiority designs without internal demonstration of assay sensitivity; achieving and documenting double-blinding whenever possible; documenting investigator and site experience; keeping all information provided to patients balanced with respect to expectation of benefit; disclosing all information provided to patients, including verbal scripts; using placebo/sham controls when possible; capturing a complete set of outcome assessments; accounting for ancillary pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic treatments in a clear manner; providing a complete description of intended and actual programming interactions; making a prospective ascertainment of SCS-specific safety outcomes; training patients and researchers on appropriate expectations, outcome assessments, and other key aspects of study performance; and providing transparent and complete reporting of results according to applicable reporting guidelines

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival