The relationship between fears of cancer recurrence and patient gender : a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: A significant concern for patients treated for cancer is fear of cancer recurrence (FCR). Although a common experience, some patients report high levels of FCR that are difficult to manage and result in over vigilant checking and high use of health services. There has been speculation about the relationship of FCR with gender with mixed reports from several systematic reviews. Aims: To determine the association of FCR with gender in previous reported studies and investigate the strength of this relationship with various moderators including year of publication, type of cancer and measurement attributes of self-reported FCR instruments. Methods: A systematic review was conducted with searches of the literature from the MEDLINE, PubMed, Embase, and PsycINFO databases following PRISMA guidelines. All the included papers were divided into two groups, namely: ‘pure’ that comprise only of patients with cancer types that both men and women can contract and ‘mixed’ that report on patients with a variety of cancer types. The association between gender and FCR level was assessed by meta-analysis. A meta-regression was performed to investigate the moderating effects of factors including: the year of publication, cancer type, mean age of the sample and the length of the FCR scale measurement. This review was registered with PROSPERO, ID: CRD42020184812. Results: Finally, 29 studies were included. The N size of pooled participants was 33339. The meta-analysis showed females to have an overall higher level of FCR than males (ES = 0.30; 95% CI, 0.23. 0.36). The meta-regression of moderating or control variables found little, if any, systematic variation in effect-sizes. Conclusion: This systematic review has clarified a potentially confused pattern of previous results in understanding the relationship between gender and FCR. Women report higher levels of FCR than men and this feature is one that clinicians and researchers can factor into their practice and future studies. The effect size is moderate, hence there is ample variation in FCR level, independent of gender, that requires further investigation.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Analysis on Multi-factors Affecting Trust in Online Trade

The great changes of Internet have taken place rapidly for more than 5 years, not only in basic facilities, but also in sorts of products & services provided for customers. The issue on trust in online trade becomes an urgent matter in the development of e-Business. With the survey based 183 users of Internet, this paper analyzes the main factors affecting trust in online trade among Chinese customers. The cause that customers have less trust in merchants is short of useful information. Paying great attention to the information could reach the objective of fostering consumers\u27 trust

Fabrication, modeling, and characterization of form-birefringent nanostructures

A 490-nm-deep nanostructure with a period of 200 nm was fabricated in a GaAs substrate by use of electron-beam lithography and dry-etching techniques. The form birefringence of this microstructure was studied numerically with rigorous coupled-wave analysis and compared with experimental measurements at a wavelength of 920 nm. The numerically predicted phase retardation of 163.3 degrees was found to be in close agreement with the experimentally measured result of 162.5 degrees, thereby verifying the validity of our numerical modeling. The fabricated microstructures show extremely large artificial anisotropy compared with that available in naturally birefringent materials and are useful for numerous polarization optics applications

Empirical Study on Consumer Perceived On-line Payment Risk

This paper takes the potential release of online transaction market size as the starting point of research, and discusses how Chinese consumer perceived risks influence online payment willingness. This study divides consumer perceived risks of online payment into eight dimensions: Economic risk, Functional risk, Private risk, Security risk, Time risk, Service risk, Psychological risk and Social risk. Furthermore, it explores the influence of multi-dimensional perceived risks on the willingness of consumers’ online payment on the basis of 616 samples from Shanghai. The empirical results show that there is a significant negative correlation between perceived economic risks and the willingness to pay online; perceived security risks and some other risks have significant positive effect on payment willingness, which shows that certain perceived risks are becoming systemic risks in accordance with the principle of finance. So, the paper imply that both Private and Government third payment platforms shall take certain measures to reduce consumers’ specific perceived risk for promoting the development of online transaction market in China

Down-regulation of Survivin enhances sensitivity to BPR0L075 in human cancer cells via caspase-independent mechanisms

Background: BPR0L075 [6-methoxy-3-(3',4',5'-trimethoxy-benzoyl)-1H-indole] is a novel anti-cancer compound. It inhibits tubulin polymerization and induces mitochondrial-dependent apoptosis in various human cancer cells with different multi-drug resistance (MDR) status. Over-expression of an anti-apoptotic molecule, survivin, causes drug-resistance in various cancers. Survivin inhibits apoptosis by interfering caspase-3 and promotes cell growth by stabilizing microtubule networks. Here, we determined the effects of down-regulation of survivin in BPR0L075 (L075) treatment. Methods: Western blot analysis was used to determine the expression level of survivin in L075-untreated/-treated human oral carcinoma KB and nasopharyngeal carcinoma HONE-1 cancer cells. siRNA was used to down-regulate endogenous survivin. MTT cell viability assay, real-time caspase-3 activity assay and immuno-fluorescence microscopy were used to analyze downstream effects. Results: Survivin expression was up-regulated in both KB and HONE-1 cells in response to L075 treatment. Down-regulation of survivin induced hyper-sensitivity to L075 in KB and re-stored sensitivity to L075 in KB-derived L075-resistant KB-L30 cancer cells. At the molecular level, down-regulation of survivin induced changes in microtubule dynamics in both KB and KB-L30 cells. Surprisingly, down-regulation of survivin did not enhance the activity of caspase-3 in L075 therapy. Instead, down-regulation of survivin induced translocation of the apoptosis-inducing factor (AIF) from cytoplasm to nucleus. Conclusion: Down-regulation of survivin improved drug sensitivity to L075 in both KB and L075-resistant KB-L30 cancer cells, possibly through a tubulin-dependent and caspase-independent mechanism. We suggest that combining BPR0L075 and survivin inhibitor may give better clinical outcome than the use of BPR0L075 monotherapy in future clinical trials

N-(2-Chloro­pyrimidin-4-yl)-2-methyl-2H-indazol-6-amine methanol monosolvate

In the title compound, C12H10ClN5·CH3OH, the indazole ring system and the pyrimidine ring make a dihedral angle of 23.86 (4)°. In the crystal, the components are linked by N—H⋯O and O—H⋯N hydrogen bonds into chains propagated in [010]. Inter­molecular π–π inter­actions [centroid–centroid distances = 3.6404 (9), 3.6725 (9) and 3.4566 (9) Å] between the rings of neighbouring chains also stabilize the crystal packing

Multistep Hybrid Extragradient Method for Triple Hierarchical Variational Inequalities

We consider a triple hierarchical variational inequality problem (THVIP), that is, a variational inequality problem defined over the set of solutions of another variational inequality problem which is defined over the intersection of the fixed point set of a strict pseudocontractive mapping and the solution set of the classical variational inequality problem. Moreover, we propose a multistep hybrid extragradient method to compute the approximate solutions of the THVIP and present the convergence analysis of the sequence generated by the proposed method. We also derive a solution method for solving a system of hierarchical variational inequalities (SHVI), that is, a system of variational inequalities defined over the intersection of the fixed point set of a strict pseudocontractive mapping and the solution set of the classical variational inequality problem. Under very mild conditions, it is proven that the sequence generated by the proposed method converges strongly to a unique solution of the SHVI

ROBOTICS COMPETITION-BASED LEARNING FOR 21ST CENTURY STEM EDUCATION

This article proposes the Robotics Competition-based Learning (R-CBL) in the 21st century learning environment to integrate Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education. This study has an attempt to highlight the connections between the STEM disciplines as well as the integration of 21st-century competencies to spark students’ interest towards the STEM. The problem statement revealed in this article is Malaysia may soon experience a serious human capital deficiency in the STEM field. Thus, it is important to practice a new pedagogy for 21st century integrated STEM education. The objectives of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of R-CBL to increase students’ interest towards STEM in “Robot Olympics Malaysia 2018”. The finding in this research shows the educational robotics as the digital tool can promote STEM learning among secondary school students. In conclusion, by practising Robotics Competition-based Learning in 21st century STEM classroom, learners are expected to have attentiveness in the integrated STEM curriculum. The implication of this pedagogy is to bridge the gap between the expected curriculums, written curriculum, and taught the curriculum. Keywords: robotics, competition, STEM education, 21st centur

Synthesis and spectral studies of coumarin derivatives as fluorescent probes towards Fe3+ and Cu2+

895-903Three novel coumarin derivatives have been designed and facilely synthesized, namely 6-[bis-(2-acetoxyethyl)aminomethyl]-4-methyl coumarin (BAMC), 4-(trans-4-methylformate-styryl)-6-[bis-(2-acetoxyethyl) aminomethyl]-coumarin (TSAC) and Trans-4-[2-(benzimidazole-2-substituted)vinyl]-6-methyl coumarin (TBVC). The synthesis route of the coumarin derivatives via various reactions including Pechmann, Wittig and substitution, three strategies are applied in the construction of the coumarin-based fluorescent probes, in view of the impact of the electronic push-pull effect, extended electronic conjugated system, and the strong fluorescence emission group, respectively. The compounds BAMC and TSAC are proved to be selective fluorescent probes to Fe3+ and Cu2+ based on the intramolecular charge transfer mechanism. TBVC exhibits enhanced fluorescent emission in tetrahydrofuran offers the potential for the high-performance fluorescent probe. The relationship between the structure and the fluorescence mechanism of coumarin probes is explored