Social Media Usage Patterns: Research Note Regarding the Lack of Universal Validated Measures for Active and Passive Use

The existing literature regarding social media use provides extant evidence supporting the claim that usage patterns ultimately have the capability of impacting users. However, the vast majority of the literature is based upon experimental laboratory settings where participants are observed by researchers. The current article asserts that there is a significant deficiency within the discipline regarding the validated measurement of usage patterns of social networking sites (SNSs) and offers guidance for those who may want to develop a general measure

The crystal morphology and growth rates of triclinic N-docosane crystallising from N-dodecane solutions

A detailed analysis of the crystal morphology of triclinic n-docosane (C22H46) is presented together with a preliminary assessment of the supersaturation-dependence of the growth rates for the predicted (hkl) faces. A methodology to index the experimentally observed crystal faces, based on a combined BFDH and zone axis methodology is defined. Analysis using this methodology yields the morphological indexation of n-docosane to be (001), (112), (102), (010), and (1 - 33) or (130) based on the expected triclinic crystal structure. Crystals of n-docosane growing from supersaturated n-dodecane (C12 H26) solutions, as studied using in-situ optical microscopy, at three different supersaturation (σ) levels 0.01, 0.02 and 0.05, reveal that the crystal morphology changes with increasing in supersaturation, evolving from a habit consistent with a triclinic crystal system to a habit that is perhaps more representative of an orthorhombic structure. Growth rates determined for the (112) and (102) faces as well as for those less dominant faces range between 0.51 and 9.85 mm/s, in good agreement with previously reported data for other organic molecules including n-alkanes

Nonlinear Dynamics of the Perceived Pitch of Complex Sounds

We apply results from nonlinear dynamics to an old problem in acoustical physics: the mechanism of the perception of the pitch of sounds, especially the sounds known as complex tones that are important for music and speech intelligibility

Patient reported cosmetic outcome after vacuum assisted excision of benign breast lesions:a cross-sectional study

OBJECTIVE: Better cosmetic outcome after vacuum assisted excision (VAE) compared to surgical excision of benign breast lesions is suggested in previous studies but has never been evaluated with validated outcome measures. In this study, patient reported cosmetic outcome after VAE was evaluated. METHODS: Patients who underwent VAE between July 2017 and December 2018 were invited to complete the cosmetic subscale of the Dutch Breast Cancer Treatment Outcome Scale, comparing the treated with the untreated breast. Response mode ranged from 1 (no difference) to 4 (large difference) and cosmetic outcome was calculated as the unweighted mean. Clinical outcomes included: tumor size, number of cores, complications, residual lesions and recurrences. RESULTS: Response rate was 73.4% (47 of 64 patients). Median tumor size was 15 mm (range 5-51 mm) and median number of cores 6.5 (range 1-85), complete excision was confirmed in all but two patients. Mean cosmetic outcome was good (mean score ≤1.75) in 74% of patients and no patients reported a poor cosmetic outcome (mean score >3.25). A hematoma occurred in five patients (one needed aspiration) and a skin rash in one patient, no patients developed an infection or seroma. CONCLUSION: In this study VAE is safe and effective for tumors up to 5 cm and patient reported cosmetic outcome was good. Patients with benign lesions could benefit from VAE as an alternative for surgical excision. ADVANCES IN KNOWLEDGE: A formal quantitative measurement of cosmetic outcome after vacuum assisted excision for benign breast lesions was still lacking. This study shows that this cosmetic outcome is overall good in benign lesions up to 5 cm

Large losses from little lies: Strategic gender misrepresentation and cooperation

This paper investigates the possibility that a small deceptive act of misrepresenting one's gender to others reduces cooperation in the Golden Balls game, a variant of a prisoner's dilemma game. Compared to treatments where either participants' true genders are revealed to each other in a pair or no information on gender is given, the treatment effects of randomly selecting people to be allowed to misrepresent their gender on defection are positive, sizeable, and statistically significant. Allowing people to misrepresent their gender reduces the average cooperation rate by approximately 10-12 percentage points. While one explanation for the significant treatment effects is that participants who chose to misrepresent their gender in the treatment where they were allowed to do so defect substantially more, the potential of being matched with someone who could be misrepresenting their gender also caused people to defect more than usual as well. On average, individuals who chose to misrepresent their gender are around 32 percentage points more likely to defect than those in the blind and true gender treatments. Further analysis reveals that a large part of the effect is driven by women who misrepresented in same-sex pairs and men who misrepresented in mixed-sex pairs. We conclude that even small short-term opportunities to misrepresent one's gender can potentially be extremely harmful to later human cooperation

Epigenetics as a mechanism driving polygenic clinical drug resistance

Aberrant methylation of CpG islands located at or near gene promoters is associated with inactivation of gene expression during tumour development. It is increasingly recognised that such epimutations may occur at a much higher frequency than gene mutation and therefore have a greater impact on selection of subpopulations of cells during tumour progression or acquisition of resistance to anticancer drugs. Although laboratory-based models of acquired resistance to anticancer agents tend to focus on specific genes or biochemical pathways, such 'one gene : one outcome' models may be an oversimplification of acquired resistance to treatment of cancer patients. Instead, clinical drug resistance may be due to changes in expression of a large number of genes that have a cumulative impact on chemosensitivity. Aberrant CpG island methylation of multiple genes occurring in a nonrandom manner during tumour development and during the acquisition of drug resistance provides a mechanism whereby expression of multiple genes could be affected simultaneously resulting in polygenic clinical drug resistance. If simultaneous epigenetic regulation of multiple genes is indeed a major driving force behind acquired resistance of patients' tumour to anticancer agents, this has important implications for biomarker studies of clinical outcome following chemotherapy and for clinical approaches designed to circumvent or modulate drug resistance

Randomized controlled trial comparing magnetic marker localization (MaMaLoc) with wire-guided localization in the treatment of early-stage breast cancer

Wire-guided localization (WGL) is the standard of care in the surgical treatment of nonpalpable breast tumors. In this study, we compare the use of a new magnetic marker localization (MaMaLoc) technique to WGL in the treatment of early-stage breast cancer patients. Open-label, single-center, randomized controlled trial comparing MaMaLoc (intervention) to WGL (control) in women with early-stage breast cancer. Primary outcome was surgical usability measured using the System Usability Scale (SUS, 0-100 score). Secondary outcomes were patient reported, clinical, and pathological outcomes such as retrieval rate, operative time, resected specimen weight, margin status, and reoperation rate. Thirty-two patients were analyzed in the MaMaLoc group and 35 in the WGL group. Patient and tumor characteristics were comparable between groups. No in situ complications occurred. Retrieval rate was 100% in both groups. Surgical usability was higher for MaMaLoc: 70.2 ± 8.9 vs. 58.1 ± 9.1, p < 0.001. Patients reported higher overall satisfaction with MaMaLoc (median score 5/5) versus WGL (score 4/5), p < 0.001. The use of magnetic marker localization (MaMaLoc) for early-stage breast cancer is effective and has higher surgical usability than standard WGL