Prediction of recovery of swallowing disorder in stroke patients after rehabilitation

published_or_final_versio

Outcome of neurogenic dysphagia in stroke patients

published_or_final_versio

Educational Usage of Mobile Devices: Differences Between Postgraduate and Undergraduate Students

The rapid increase of smartphone usage in recent years has provided students the opportunity to participate in mobile learning (m-learning) anywhere, anytime. Academic institutions are also following this trend to launch many m-learning services. This article investigates the differences of the user needs between undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) students though an online survey with 140 Library Information Systems (LIS) subjects in a Japanese university in order to provide solid foundations for future m-learning studies. We find that UG and PG students do not show significant differences in adopting m-learning by smartphones despite the fact that they have different learning patterns. The m-learning frequencies of smartphones generally range from weekly to monthly, where using search engines is the most frequent, and reading academic resources is the least frequent. They tend to use these services for handling their daily routines (such as search engine, social networks) rather than their academic activities (such as using online databases to search for academic materials). Further, the results also show that content displaying issues (e.g., small display screen, text unable to enlarge) are barriers for most subjects in using these m-learning services.postprin

Prediction of persistence of neurogenic dysphagia in stroke patients

published_or_final_versio

Is there a role for unstimulated thyroglobulin velocity in predicting recurrence in papillary thyroid carcinoma patients with detectable thyroglobulin after radioiodine ablation?

BACKGROUND: In the follow-up of papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) patients treated with curative thyroidectomy and radioiodine ablation, raised thyroglobulin (Tg) predicts recurrence with reasonable sensitivity and specificity. However, a proportion of patients present with raised Tg level but no other clinical evidence of disease. Only limited data on Tg kinetics have been reported to date. Here we aim to evaluate the prognostic and predictive significance of nonstimulated serum Tg velocity (TgV). METHODS: Consecutive PTC patients treated with curative thyroidectomy and radioiodine ablation between 2003 and 2010 were analyzed. Patients with at least one detectable Tg measurement (>0.2 ng/mL) were included. TgV was defined as the annualized rate of Tg change. Logistic regression analyses were performed to evaluate the role of TgV in the prediction of disease recurrence. The optimal TgV cutoff was assigned by receiver-operating characteristic curve analysis. Overall survival of patients above versus below the TgV cutoff were determined by the Kaplan-Meier method and compared. RESULTS: Of a total of 501 patients, 87 had at least one Tg value >0.2 ng/mL; in these latter patients, 29 (33.3 %) developed recurrence. TgV was an independent predictor of the recurrence. TgV >/=0.3 ng/mL per year predicted recurrence with a sensitivity of 83.3 % and specificity of 94.4 %. Patients with TgV below the cutoff had a significantly better overall survival (p = 0.038). CONCLUSIONS: TgV predicts recurrence with high sensitivity and specificity, and is a prognosticator of survival in postthyroidectomy and postablation PTC patients with raised Tg.published_or_final_versio

Tissue-specific transcriptome assemblies of the marine medaka Oryzias melastigma and comparative analysis with the freshwater medaka Oryzias latipes

published_or_final_versio

Hypoxia causes transgenerational impairments in reproduction of fish

published_or_final_versio

Neutrino emission from dense matter, and neutron star thermal evolution

A brief review is given of neutrino emission processes in dense matter, with particular emphasis on recent developments. These include direct Urca processes for nucleons and hyperons, which can give rise to rapid energy loss from the stellar core without exotic matter, and the effect of band structure on neutrino bremsstrahlung from electrons in the crust, which results in much lower energy losses by this process than had previously been estimated

Household secondhand smoke exposure of elementary schoolchildren in Southern Taiwan and factors associated with their confidence in avoiding exposure: a cross-sectional study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Exposure to household Secondhand Smoke (SHS) poses a major health threat to children after an indoor smoking ban was imposed in Taiwan. This study aimed to assess the household SHS exposure in elementary school children in southern Taiwan and the factors associated with their avoidance of SHS exposure before and after the implementation of Taiwan's new Tobacco Hazards Prevention Act in 2009.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In this cross-sectional school-based study, data on household SHS exposure, avoidance of SHS and related variables was obtained from the 2008 and 2009 Control of School-aged Children Smoking Study Survey. A random sample of 52 elementary schools was included. A total of 4450 3-6 graders (aged 8-13) completed the questionnaire. Regression models analyzed factors of children's self-confidence to avoid household SHS exposure.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Over 50% of children were found to have lived with a family member who smoked in front of them after the new law enacted, and 35% of them were exposed to household SHS more than 4 days a week. Having a positive attitude toward smoking (β = -0.05 to -0.06) and high household SHS exposure (β = -0.34 to -0.47) were significantly associated with a lower avoidance of SHS exposure. Comparing to girls, boys had lower scores in their knowledge of tobacco hazards; and this factor was significantly related to their SHS avoidance (β = 0.13-0.14).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The intervention program should enhance school children do actively avoid exposure to SHS in home settings, and more importantly, provide tobacco hazard knowledge to male students to avoid exposure to household SHS for themselves. The results also provide further evidence that Tobacco Hazards Prevention Act should perhaps be extended to the family environment in order to protect children from the hazards of household SHS exposure.</p

Evaluating Ortholog Prediction Algorithms in a Yeast Model Clade

RSD, respectively, so that they can predict orthologs across multiple taxa) against a set of 2,723 groups of high-quality curated orthologs from 6 Saccharomycete yeasts in the Yeast Gene Order Browser. of all algorithms dramatically increased in these traps.) for evolutionary and functional genomics studies where the objective is the accurate inference of single-copy orthologs (e.g., molecular phylogenetics), but that all algorithms fail to accurately predict orthologs when paralogy is rampant