Psychosocial Predictors of Acculturative Stress among Female and Male Immigrant Asian Americans: A Gender Comparison Study

The purpose of this study was to examine whether gender differences existed and how the predictors were linked to acculturative stress across gender among a national sample of 1639 immigrant Chinese, Filipino, Vietnamese, and other Asian Americans. The data were from the National Latino and Asian American Study (NLAAS) conducted in 2002 and 2003, the first national epidemiological household survey of Asian Americans in the United States. The participants took part in face-to-face interviews, which were conducted with computer-assisted interviewing software in Mandarin, Cantonese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, and English. After fitted bivariate correlations to examine the relationships between acculturative stress and psychosocial variables, data were analyzed using two multiple regressions to identify the most significant predictors of acculturative stress for men and women separately. Results indicated that the psychosocial predictors of acculturative stress varied with gender status. For all men and women, longer years in the U.S., higher English proficiency, and less perceived discrimination predicted related to less acculturative stress. Social network was not the predictor for both men and women. Age of immigration, marital status, family cohesion and social position were additional significant predictors of acculturative stress only for men, but not for women. The implications of these results were discussed

Psychosocial Predictors of Acculturative Stress among Female and Male Immigrant Asian Americans: A Gender Comparison Study

The purpose of this study was to examine whether gender differences existed and how the predictors were linked to acculturative stress across gender among a national sample of 1639 immigrant Chinese, Filipino, Vietnamese, and other Asian Americans. The data were from the National Latino and Asian American Study (NLAAS) conducted in 2002 and 2003, the first national epidemiological household survey of Asian Americans in the United States. The participants took part in face-to-face interviews, which were conducted with computer-assisted interviewing software in Mandarin, Cantonese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, and English. After fitted bivariate correlations to examine the relationships between acculturative stress and psychosocial variables, data were analyzed using two multiple regressions to identify the most significant predictors of acculturative stress for men and women separately. Results indicated that the psychosocial predictors of acculturative stress varied with gender status. For all men and women, longer years in the U.S., higher English proficiency, and less perceived discrimination predicted related to less acculturative stress. Social network was not the predictor for both men and women. Age of immigration, marital status, family cohesion and social position were additional significant predictors of acculturative stress only for men, but not for women. The implications of these results were discussed

Synthesis of Novel Cyclic Olefin Copolymer (COC) with High Performance via Effective Copolymerization of Ethylene with Bulky Cyclic Olefin

Novel cyclic olefin copolymer (COC) with high glass transition temperature, good mechanical performance, high transparency, and excellent film forming ability has been achieved in this work by effective copolymerization of ethylene and exo-1,4,4a,9,9a,10-hexahydro-9,10­(1′,2′)-benzeno-l,4-methanoanthracene (HBMN). This bulky cyclic olefin comonomer can be simply prepared in good yield via Diels–Alder reaction. By utilizing constrained geometry catalyst (CGC) activated with Al­(^<i>i</i>Bu)₃/[Ph₃C]­[B­(C₆F₅)₄], ethylene/HBMN copolymer can be obtained with excellent production, high molecular weight, and a wide range of HBMN incorporation. ¹³C NMR (DEPT) spectra reveal alternating ethylene–HBMN sequence can be detected at high HBMN incorporation. The glass transition temperature (<i>T</i>_g) of resulted copolymer enhances with increasing HBMN incorporation. A high <i>T</i>_g up to 207.0 °C is attainable at low comonomer incorporation of 30.4 mol %, which is 61 °C higher than that of commercial norbornene (NB)-derived COC (54 mol %). The tensile test indicates that the ethylene/HBMN copolymer has good mechanical performance which is more flexible than ethylene/NB copolymer and the previously reported COC even at a higher <i>T</i>_g level

The form and function processing of lexical tone and intonation in tone-language-speaking children with autism spectrum disorder

Studies on how the form versus function aspect of tone and intonation is processed by autistic individuals have mainly focused on speakers of non-tonal languages (e.g., English), and have produced equivocal results. While the samples’ heterogeneous cognitive abilities may be contributing factors, the phenotype of tone and intonation processing in autism may also vary with one’s language background. Thirty-eight autistic and 32 non-autistic Mandarin speaking children completed tone and intonation perception tasks, each containing a function and form condition. Results suggested that the abilities to discriminate tone and intonation were not impaired at either the form or function level in some autistic children, and that these abilities were positively associated with one another in both autistic and non-autistic groups. Additionally, the more severe the ASD symptoms, the worse the form- and function-level of tone and intonation processing. While enhanced tone and intonation processing has been found in a subgroup of autistic children, it may not be a general characteristic of the autistic population even for those with long-term tone language experience. These findings reveal typical tone and intonation processing at both the form and function levels in cognitively competent autistic children and provide evidence for associated tone and intonation processing abilities across levels

Tailor-Made pH-Responsive Poly(choline phosphate) Prodrug as a Drug Delivery System for Rapid Cellular Internalization

Rapid cellular uptake and efficient drug release in tumor cells are two of the major challenges for cancer therapy. Herein, we designed and synthesized a novel pH-responsive polymer–drug conjugate system poly­(2-(methacryloyloxy)­ethyl choline phosphate)-<i>b</i>-poly­(2-methoxy-2-oxoethyl methacrylate-hydrazide-doxorubicin) (PCP-Dox) to overcome these two challenges simultaneously. It has been proved that PCP-Dox can be easily and rapidly internalized by various cancer cells due to the strong interaction between multivalent choline phosphate (CP) groups and cell membranes. Furthermore, Dox, linked to the polymer carrier via acid-labile hydrazone bond, can be released from carriers due to the increased acidity in lysosome/endosome (pH 5.0–5.5) after the polymer prodrug was internalized into the cancer cells. The cell viability assay demonstrated that this novel polymer prodrug has shown enhanced cytotoxicity in various cancer cells, indicating its great potential as a new drug delivery system for cancer therapy

Bioreducible Polymer Nanocarrier Based on Multivalent Choline Phosphate for Enhanced Cellular Uptake and Intracellular Delivery of Doxorubicin

Limited cellular uptake and inefficient intracellular drug release severely hamper the landscape of polymer drug nanocarriers in cancer chemotherapy. Herein, to address these urgent challenges in tumor treatment simultaneously, we integrated the multivalent choline phosphate (CP) and bioreducible linker into a single polymer chain, designed and synthesized a neoteric bioreducible polymer nanocarrier. The excellent hydrophility of these zwitterionic CP groups endowed high drug loading content and drug loading efficiency of doxorubicin to this drug delivery system (∼22.1 wt %, ∼95.9%). Meanwhile, we found that the multivalent choline phosphate can effectively enhance the internalization efficiency of this drug-loaded nanocarrier over few seconds, and the degree of improvement depended on the CP density in a single polymer chain. In addition, after these nanocarriers entered into the tumor cells, the accelerated cleavage of bioreducible linker made it possible for more cargo escape from the delivery system to cytoplasm to exert their cytostatic effects more efficiently. The enhanced therapeutic efficacy in various cell lines indicated the great potential of this system in anticancer drug delivery applications

Light-Induced Hypoxia-Triggered Living Nanocarriers for Synergistic Cancer Therapy

Living drug delivery system has been proposed as new concept materials because it is able to communicate with biological system, sense subtle changes in body microenvironment caused by disease, and then make rapid response to cure in the early stage of disease. Herein, taking full advantage of the tumor hypoxia physiology and successive effects of photodynamic therapy (PDT), we designed a new living delivery system via combining the PDT and hypoxia-responsive chemotherapy, abbreviated as Ce6-PEG-Azo-PCL. Then, according to the fact that oxygen can be converted into reactive oxygen species during irradiation of the photosensitizer, tumor cells could be killed after the poly­(ethylene glycol) (PEG) conjugated photosensitizer chlorine e6 was irradiated at the tumor site. What is more, the continuous consumption of oxygen could further amplify the hypoxia condition of tumor and trigger the disassembly of hypoxia-responsive azobenzene bridges at the tumor site to release loaded chemotherapeutics drugs doxorubicin. The ongoing collaboration with PDT and hypoxia-responsive chemotherapy provided an integrated therapeutic effect in vitro and in vivo to suppress tumor growth