How Do Business Students in the U.S. and in Cameroon Perceive Faculty Attributes? A Comparative Study

This study investigates student perceptions of ten selected attributes embedded in faculty behavior. These attributes are classified as primary and secondary attributes. The 4 primary attributes include effective communication (ability to communicate information effectively), ability to combine knowledge and application in real world cases and examples, high level of knowledge in presented materials, and substantial business experience in the area taught. The 6 secondary attributes include active association with the business community, active participation in academic organizations, active participation in business organizations, extensive publication of business research in scientific/scholarly journals, extensive publication of business articles in practitioner/trade oriented journals, and the college or university degree from which the faculty earned their highest degree. This study also investigates potential difference in the emphasis placed on the ten attributes between the surveyed business students in both countries. Utilizing two samples (graduate and under graduate students) from business schools (at public, private, and proprietary universities) in the United States and in Cameroon, Africa, the surveyed students revealed stronger support for the primary attributes than for the secondary attributes. The results of this study also indicated that the ability to communicate effectively, the application of knowledge to real world cases, substantial business experience in the discipline area taught, and knowledge of the materials being presented are considered the most important attributes in assessing teaching effectiveness. While students in both countries have similar mean rankings of the selected ten attributes, they significantly differ in their ratings of six attributes: actively participates in academic organizations, publications in practice/trade journals, actively participates in practice related organizations, college from which the professor earned their highest degree, and association with the business community. Further investigation using exploratory factor analysis revealed that students in both countries have moderate agreement with the two component conceptualized model: the primary and secondary business faculty attributes

Non prescribed sale of antibiotics in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: A Cross Sectional Study

Background Antibiotics sales without medical prescriptions are increasingly recognized as sources of antimicrobial misuse that can exacerbate the global burden of antibiotic resistance. We aimed to determine the percentage of pharmacies who sell antibiotics without medical prescriptions, examining the potential associated risks of such practice in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, by simulation of different clinical scenarios. Methods A cross sectional study of a quasi-random sample of pharmacies stratified by the five regions of Riyadh. Each pharmacy was visited once by two investigators who simulated having a relative with a specific clinical illness (sore throat, acute bronchitis, otitis media, acute sinusitis, diarrhea, and urinary tract infection (UTI) in childbearing aged women). Results A total of 327 pharmacies were visited. Antibiotics were dispensed without a medical prescription in 244 (77.6%) of 327, of which 231 (95%) were dispensed without a patient request. Simulated cases of sore throat and diarrhea resulted in an antibiotic being dispensed in (90%) of encounters, followed by UTI (75%), acute bronchitis (73%), otitis media (51%) and acute sinusitis (40%). Metronidazole (89%) and ciprofloxacin (86%) were commonly given for diarrhea and UTI, respectively, whereas amoxicillin/clavulanate was dispensed (51%) for the other simulated cases. None of the pharmacists asked about antibiotic allergy history or provided information about drug interactions. Only 23% asked about pregnancy status when dispensing antibiotics for UTI-simulated cases. Conclusions We observed that an antibiotic could be obtained in Riyadh without a medical prescription or an evidence-based indication with associated potential clinical risks. Strict enforcement and adherence to existing regulations are warranted

The impact of surgical delay on resectability of colorectal cancer: An international prospective cohort study

AIM: The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has provided a unique opportunity to explore the impact of surgical delays on cancer resectability. This study aimed to compare resectability for colorectal cancer patients undergoing delayed versus non-delayed surgery. METHODS: This was an international prospective cohort study of consecutive colorectal cancer patients with a decision for curative surgery (January-April 2020). Surgical delay was defined as an operation taking place more than 4 weeks after treatment decision, in a patient who did not receive neoadjuvant therapy. A subgroup analysis explored the effects of delay in elective patients only. The impact of longer delays was explored in a sensitivity analysis. The primary outcome was complete resection, defined as curative resection with an R0 margin. RESULTS: Overall, 5453 patients from 304 hospitals in 47 countries were included, of whom 6.6% (358/5453) did not receive their planned operation. Of the 4304 operated patients without neoadjuvant therapy, 40.5% (1744/4304) were delayed beyond 4 weeks. Delayed patients were more likely to be older, men, more comorbid, have higher body mass index and have rectal cancer and early stage disease. Delayed patients had higher unadjusted rates of complete resection (93.7% vs. 91.9%, P = 0.032) and lower rates of emergency surgery (4.5% vs. 22.5%, P < 0.001). After adjustment, delay was not associated with a lower rate of complete resection (OR 1.18, 95% CI 0.90-1.55, P = 0.224), which was consistent in elective patients only (OR 0.94, 95% CI 0.69-1.27, P = 0.672). Longer delays were not associated with poorer outcomes. CONCLUSION: One in 15 colorectal cancer patients did not receive their planned operation during the first wave of COVID-19. Surgical delay did not appear to compromise resectability, raising the hypothesis that any reduction in long-term survival attributable to delays is likely to be due to micro-metastatic disease

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Cross-Cancer Genome-Wide Analysis of Lung, Ovary, Breast, Prostate, and Colorectal Cancer Reveals Novel Pleiotropic Associations

Identifying genetic variants with pleiotropic associations can uncover common pathways influencing multiple cancers. We took a two-stage approach to conduct genome-wide association studies for lung, ovary, breast, prostate, and colorectal cancer from the GAME-ON/GECCO Network (61,851 cases, 61,820 controls) to identify pleiotropic loci. Findings were replicated in independent association studies (55,789 cases, 330,490 controls). We identified a novel pleiotropic association at 1q22 involving breast and lung squamous cell carcinoma, with eQTL analysis showing an association with ADAM15/THBS3 gene expression in lung. We also identified a known breast cancer locus CASP8/ALS2CR12 associated with prostate cancer, a known cancer locus at CDKN2B-AS1 with different variants associated with lung adenocarcinoma and prostate cancer, and confirmed the associations of a breast BRCA2 locus with lung and serous ovarian cancer. This is the largest study to date examining pleiotropy across multiple cancer-associated loci, identifying common mechanisms of cancer development and progression. Cancer Res; 76(17); 5103-14. ©2016 AACR

An Empirical Investigation into Examination of Factors Influencing University Students’ Behavior towards Elearning Acceptance Using SEM Approach

There are several reasons why most of the universities implement E-learning. The extent of E-learning programs is being offered by the higher educational institutes in the UAE are evidently expanding. However, very few studies have been carried out to validate the process of how E-learning is being accepted and employed by university students. The study involved a sample of 365 university students. To describe the acceptance process, the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) method was used. On the basis of the technology acceptance model (TAM), the standard structural model that involved E-learning Computer Self-Efficacy, Social Influence, Enjoyment, System Interactivity, Computer Anxiety, Technical support, Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use, Attitude, and Behavioral Intention to Use e-learning, was developed. The findings showed that TAM served as a suitable theoretical tool to comprehend the acceptance of e-learning by users. The most critical construct to explain the causal process employed in the model was E-learning Computer Self-Efficacy, Social Influence, Enjoyment, System Interactivity, Computer Anxiety, Technical support, Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use, Attitude, followed by Behavioral Intention to Use e-learning. Practical implications are offered by the outcomes for decision makers, professionals and developers in how effective E-learning systems can be implemented properly

Prevalence of post-acute COVID-19 syndrome symptoms at different follow-up periods: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Background Post-acute COVID-19 Syndrome is now recognized as a complex systemic disease that is associated with substantial morbidity. Objectives To estimate the prevalence of persistent symptoms and signs at least 12 weeks after acute COVID-19 at different follow-up periods. Data sources Searches were conducted up to October 2021 in Ovid Embase, Ovid Medline, and PubMed. Study eligibility criteria Articles in English that reported the prevalence of persistent symptoms among individuals with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection and included at least 50 patients with a follow-up of at least 12 weeks after acute illness. Methods Random-effect meta-analysis was performed to produce pooled prevalence for each symptom at 4 different follow-up time intervals. Between-studies heterogeneity was evaluated using the I2 statistic and was explored via meta-regression, considering several a priori study level variables. Risk of bias was assessed using the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) tool and the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale for prevalence studies and comparative studies, respectively. Results After screening 3209 studies, a total of 63 studies were eligible, with a total COVID-19 population of 257,348. The most commonly reported symptoms were fatigue, dyspnea, sleep disorder and concentration difficulty (32%, 25%, 24%, and 22% respectively at 3-12 months follow-up). There was substantial between-studies heterogeneity for all reported symptoms prevalence. Meta-regressions identified statistically significant effect modifiers: world region, male gender, diabetes mellitus, disease severity and overall study quality score. Five of six studies including a comparator group consisting of COVID-19 negative cases observed significant adjusted associations between COVID-19 and several long-term symptoms. Conclusions This systematic review found that a large proportion of patients experience PACS 3 to 12 months after recovery from the acute phase of COVD-19. However, available studies of PACS are highly heterogeneous. Future studies need to have appropriate comparator groups, standardized symptoms definitions and measurements and longer follow-up

A comprehensive study for indoor localization techniques using received signal strength

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