884 research outputs found
Conceptualizing socioscientific decision making from a review of research in science education
Abstract: This article proposes a theoretical framework for conceptualizing socioscientific decision making, reviews current research in this area, and intends to shed some light on the instructional design for the classroom implementation of socioscientific decision making. The framework involves 3 phases: formulate the decision-making space, posit a decision-making strategy, and reflect on the decision-making process. A total of 24 articles that specifically focused on socioscientific decision making were included. They were classified into 2 groups. The first group explored studentsâ socioscientific decision-making behavior and its relationships with their cognitive conditions. The second examined the effectiveness of the interventions, that is, task conditions. The analysis showed that most of the studies in both groups focused on phase 1 and studied 3 research themes: informal reasoning, evidence-based reasoning, and social interactions. The findings indicated the challenges phases 1 and 2 posed to students, such as prioritizing criteria and employing a suitable decision-making strategy. Two cognitive conditions, scientific knowledge and scientific epistemological beliefs, appeared to have a more direct impact on evidence-based reasoning rather than on informal reasoning. Group 2 studies designed various interventions and looked into divergent socioscientific decision-making performances across 3 phases. The framework helps conceptualize socioscientific decision making in a more structural and holistic way. The content review provides instructional insights for the socioscientific decision-making process and suggests several future research directions
Does the Law of One Price hold? A cross-regional study of China
This study considers the price convergence in different regions of
China, which is the largest developing country in the world and a
country in which the regional difference is much larger between
provinces. Whether there is price convergence between regions in one
country is an important economic issue according to the Law of One
Price (LOP) theory. Compared to previous studies, this article operates
with the Sequential Panel Selection Method (SPSM) to explore the
non-stationary properties of the LOP in Chinaâs regions. We provide
robust evidence to specify that the LOP holds true for two-thirds of
the provinces in China, mainly in the Western and Central regions. This
means that the Eastern regionâs price fluctuation is non-stationary
and that the consumer price index (CPI) levels of the Western, Central
and Northeastern regions are relatively convergent in China. The
conduction path of the CPI level is from the Eastern region to the other
regions. It shows that prices can converge with each other by LOP and
the values of the same goods in the Western and Central regions are
equal and if there is a price difference, then it can be eliminated by
interregional trade
Successful treatment of methemoglobinemia in an elderly couple with severe cyanosis: two case reports
INTRODUCTION: Methemoglobinemia should be considered in all cyanotic patients who remain unresponsive to oxygen therapy. Rapid diagnosis is very important in emergency cases. Here, we present the cases of two patients, a married couple, admitted to our hospital with methemoglobinemia after exposure to sodium nitrite. CASE PRESENTATION: Two patients, a married couple, presented with methemoglobinemia. The 72-year-old Taiwanese man and 68-year-old Taiwanese woman were referred to our hospital with dizziness and tachypnea. On examination, their mucous membranes were cyanotic, and their blood samples showed the classic âchocolate brownâ appearance. The man also reported having experienced twitching of his right arm for a few minutes before arrival at the hospital. The symptoms of both patients failed to improve in response to supplemental oxygen delivered via oxygen masks, although the arterial blood gas data of these patients were normal and their pulse oximetry showed oxyhemoglobin levels of approximately 85%. A carbon monoxide-oximeter showed that the manâs methemoglobin concentration was 48.3%, and the womanâs was 36.4%. Methylene blue (100mg) was administered intravenously to both patients, and their symptoms improved dramatically. They were admitted to the intensive care unit and discharged three days later, without neurological sequelae. CONCLUSION: Severe methemoglobinemia is a life-threatening condition and, if untreated, may result in death. Early diagnosis and appropriate antidotal treatment are crucial in treating this emergency situation
Digitalization, Comparative Advantages, and Digital Divide
This study presents a simple model to elucidate the pivotal role of digital intensity in shaping a nationâs competitiveness on the global stage. We introduce digitalization into Krugmanâs dynamic comparative advantage model, in which we suppose that technology development depends on an index of cumulative experiences and these experiences have to be conducted through digitalization. We argue that digitalization has the potential to trigger a positive feedback loop, particularly in countries characterized by elevated digital intensity. This phenomenon leads to heightened productivity, often translating to a competitive edge in tradable sectors and amplified income levels relative to other nations. Nevertheless, the widening divergence in digital intensity between developing (the South) and developed (the North) countries, referred to as the digital divide, poses a challenge by amplifying income inequality across these regions. This proposed model emphasizes the crucial role of the disparity in access to digital infrastructure in perpetuating the digital divide between developing and developed countries. The dynamic comparative advantage framework in this model further suggests that digitalization can lead to a virtuous circle in countries with a high level of digital intensity. However, for countries with low levels of digital intensity, the opposite may occur. This phenomenon thus exacerbates income inequality between developing and developed countries
Background Parenchymal Enhancement of the Contralateral Normal Breast: Association with Tumor Response in Breast Cancer Patients Receiving Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy
AbstractPURPOSE: This study investigated the association between background parenchymal enhancement (BPE) and pathologic response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC). METHODS: A total of 46 patients diagnosed with invasive breast cancer were analyzed. Each patient had three magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies, one pre-treatment and two follow-up (F/U) MRI studies. BPE was measured as the averaged enhancement of the whole fibroglandular tissues. The pre-treatment BPE and the changes in the F/U MRI were compared between patients achieving pathologic complete response (pCR) versus those not. Subgroup analyses based on age, estrogen receptor (ER), and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) status of their cancers were also performed. RESULTS: The pre-treatment BPE was higher in the pCR group than that in the non-pCR group. Compared to baseline, BPE at F/U-1 was significantly decreased in the pCR group but not in the non-pCR group. In subgroup analysis based on age, these results were seen only in the younger group (<55 years old), not in the older group (âĽ55 years old). Older patients had a significantly lower pre-treatment BPE than younger patients. In analysis based on molecular biomarkers, a significantly decreased BPE at F/U-1 was only found in the ER-negative pCR group but not in the non-pCR, nor in the ER-positive groups. CONCLUSIONS: A higher pre-treatment BPE showing a significant decrease early after starting NAC was related to pCR in pre/peri-menopausal patients
Learning Fine-Grained Visual Understanding for Video Question Answering via Decoupling Spatial-Temporal Modeling
While recent large-scale video-language pre-training made great progress in
video question answering, the design of spatial modeling of video-language
models is less fine-grained than that of image-language models; existing
practices of temporal modeling also suffer from weak and noisy alignment
between modalities. To learn fine-grained visual understanding, we decouple
spatial-temporal modeling and propose a hybrid pipeline, Decoupled
Spatial-Temporal Encoders, integrating an image- and a video-language encoder.
The former encodes spatial semantics from larger but sparsely sampled frames
independently of time, while the latter models temporal dynamics at lower
spatial but higher temporal resolution. To help the video-language model learn
temporal relations for video QA, we propose a novel pre-training objective,
Temporal Referring Modeling, which requires the model to identify temporal
positions of events in video sequences. Extensive experiments demonstrate that
our model outperforms previous work pre-trained on orders of magnitude larger
datasets.Comment: BMVC 2022. Code is available at https://github.com/shinying/des
Malaria parasites produce volatile mosquito attractants
UnlabelledThe malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum contains a nonphotosynthetic plastid organelle that possesses plant-like metabolic pathways. Plants use the plastidial isoprenoid biosynthesis pathway to produce volatile odorants, known as terpenes. In this work, we describe the volatile chemical profile of cultured malaria parasites. Among the identified compounds are several plant-like terpenes and terpene derivatives, including known mosquito attractants. We establish the molecular identity of the odorant receptors of the malaria mosquito vector Anopheles gambiae, which responds to these compounds. The malaria parasite produces volatile signals that are recognized by mosquitoes and may thereby mediate host attraction and facilitate transmission.ImportanceMalaria is a key global health concern. Mosquitoes that transmit malaria are more attracted to malaria parasite-infected mammalian hosts. These studies aimed to understand the chemical signals produced by malaria parasites; such an understanding may lead to new transmission-blocking strategies or noninvasive malaria diagnostics
Co-Overexpression of Cyclooxygenase-2 and Microsomal Prostaglandin E Synthase-1 Adversely Affects the Postoperative Survival in Non-small Cell Lung Cancer
IntroductionCyclooxygenase (COX)-2 and microsomal prostaglandin E synthase (mPGES)-1 have been found to be overexpressed in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The aim of this study was to investigate the expression profiles of COX-2 and mPGES-1 and their correlation with the clinical characteristics and survival outcomes in patients with resected NSCLC.Methods/ResultsSeventy-nine paired adjacent normal-tumor matched samples were prospectively procured from patients undergoing surgery for NSCLC. The protein levels of COX-2 and mPGES-1 were assessed by Western blot analysis. Overexpression in the tumor sample was defined as more than twofold increase in protein expression compared with the corresponding adjacent normal tissue. Co-overexpression of COX-2 and mPGES-1 were further confirmed by immunohistochemistry. COX-2 was overexpressed in 58% and mPGES-1 in 70% of the tumor samples (p < 0.0001). Co-overexpression of mPGES-1 and COX-2 was noted in 43%, and they were unrelated to each other (p = 0.232). Co-overexpression of both proteins was significantly associated with less tumor differentiation (p = 0.046), tumor size larger than 5 cm (p = 0.038), and worse survival status during the follow-up (p = 0.036). Multivariate analysis showed that in addition to overall stage, co-overexpression of both proteins adversely affected the overall (hazard ratio, 2.40; p = 0.045) and disease-free survivals (hazard ratio, 2.27; p = 0.029).ConclusionsOverexpression of either COX-2 or mPGES-1 is common but unrelated in NSCLC. Co-overexpression of both COX-2 and mPGES-1 adversely affects postoperative overall and disease-free survivals
Comparison of the Efficacy of Intravitreal Aflibercept and Bevacizumab for Macular Edema Secondary to Branch Retinal Vein Occlusion
Fifty-two eyes of 52 patients with treatment-naĂŻve macular edema associated with perfused branch retinal vein occlusion were retrospectively reviewed. Twenty-seven cases received PRN intravitreal bevacizumab, and 25 cases were treated by PRN intravitreal aflibercept with monthly follow-ups for 12 months. Both aflibercept and bevacizumab were effective in reduction of macular thickness and improvement of visual acuity for the participants. Both antivascular endothelial growth factor agents had similar efficacy and duration of treatment for these eyes with macular edema secondary to branch retinal vein occlusion during a 12-month period. No serious systemic or ocular adverse events were reported
Establishing a risk scoring system for predicting erosive esophagitis
SummaryObjectiveThis study aims to establish a noninvasive scoring system to predict the risk of erosive esophagitis (EE).MethodsFrom 2002 to 2009, a total of 34,346 consecutive adults who underwent health check-ups and upper gastrointestinal endoscopy were retrospectively enrolled. Of the participants, 22,892 in the earlier two-thirds period of examination were defined as the training set and the remaining 11,454 as the validation set. EE was diagnosed by upper gastrointestinal endoscopy. Independent risk factors associated with EE were analyzed by multivariate analysis using a logistic regression model with the forward stepwise selection procedure in the training set. Subsequently, an EE risk scoring system was established and weighted by β coefficient. This risk scoring system was further validated in the validation set.ResultsIn the training set, older age, male gender, higher body mass index, higher waist circumference, higher serum triglyceride, and lower high-density lipid cholesterol levels were independent risk factors for predicting EE. According to the β coefficient value of each independent risk factor, the total score ranging from 0 to 10 was established, and then low- (0â3), moderate- (4â6), and high-risk (7â10) groups were identified. In the validation set, the prevalence rates of EE in the low-, moderate-, and high-risk groups were 5.15%, 15.76% and 26.11%, respectively (p < 0.001).ConclusionThis simple noninvasive risk scoring system, including factors of age, gender, body mass index, waist circumference, triglyceride, and high-density lipid cholesterol, effectively predicted EE and stratified its incidence
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