Book Reviews : Richard W. Wilson, Learning to Be Chinese: The Political Socialization of Children in Taiwan. Cambridge, The MIT Press, 1970, pp. 203, $ 10.00

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/66553/2/10.1177_002190967400900113.pd

Processing of speech in Chinese students with different reading abilities – an FMRI study

While imaging studies with English-speaking children showed that reading achievement of children is associated with their brain profiles during speech perception tasks, little is known about the neurocognitive processing of normal\ud Chinese students with different reading proficiencies: To study the neurocognitive processing on Chinese and the input of reading level on the process, seventeen six year old students with Chinese as their first language were recruited for the research study. These students were further assessed by a reading test to distinguish their Chinese reading ability. Those scored 2/3 deviation\ud below the cultural mean score were classified as low-proficiency readers. Those scored between 2/3 below or above the mean score were classified as intermediate-proficiency readers. Those scored 2/3 standard deviation above the mean score were regarded as high-proficiency readers. During the experiment, 12 pairs of Chinese syllables evenly distributed in three stimuli blocks were presented to the students acoustically and they had to judge whether each pair of syllables was the same in rhyme\ud or not. Throughout the whole process the students' brain activation profiles were assessed by FMRl examination using the BOW (blood oxygen level dependent) contrast method in a 1. 5 T MRI system. Result analysis was focussed on the possible neurocognitive discrepancies between students of varying reading proficiency on phonological sensitivity

A Health App for Post-Pandemic Years (HAPPY) for people with physiological and psychosocial distress during the post-pandemic era: Protocol for a randomized controlled trial

Objective This article describes a protocol for a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effects of a three-level Health App for Post-Pandemic Years (HAPPY) on alleviating post-pandemic physiological and psychosocial distress. Methods Convenience and snowball sampling methods will be used to recruit 814 people aged 18+ with physiological and/or psychosocial distress. The experimental group will receive a 24-week intervention consisting of an 8-week regular supervision phase and a 16-week self-help phase. Based on their assessment results, they will be assigned to receive interventions on mindfulness, energy conservation techniques, or physical activity training. The waitlist control group will receive the same intervention in Week 25. The primary outcome will be changes in psychosocial distress, measured using the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10). Secondary outcomes will include changes in levels of fatigue (Chinese version of the Brief Fatigue Inventory), sleep quality (Chinese version of the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index), pain intensity (Numeric Rating Scale), positive appraisal (Short version of the 18-item Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire), self-efficacy (Chinese version of the General Self-efficacy Scale), depression and anxiety (Chinese version of the 21-item Depression Anxiety Stress Scale), and event impact (Chinese version of the 22-item Impact of Event Scale–Revised). All measures will be administered at baseline (T0), Week 8 after the supervision phase (T1), and 24 weeks post-intervention (T2). A generalized estimating equations model will be used to examine the group, time, and interaction (Time × Group) effect of the interventions on the outcome assessments (intention-to-treat analysis) across the three time points, and to compute a within-group comparison of objective physiological parameters and adherence to the assigned interventions in the experimental group. Conclusions The innovative, three-level mobile HAPPY app will promote beneficial behavioral strategies to alleviate post-pandemic physiological and psychosocial distress. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT05459896. Registered on 15 July 2022

Current perspectives on nasopharyngeal carcinoma

Of the ~129,079 new cases of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) and 72,987 associated deaths estimated for 2018, the majority will be geographically localized to South East Asia, and likely to show an upward trend annually. It is thought that disparities in dietary habits, lifestyle, and exposures to harmful environmental factors are likely the root cause of NPC incidence rates to differ geographically. Genetic differences due to ethnicity and the Epstein Barr virus (EBV) are likely contributing factors. Pertinently, NPC is associated with poor prognosis which is largely attributed to lack of awareness of the salient symptoms of NPC. These include nose hemorrhage and headaches and coupled with detection and the limited therapeutic options. Treatment options include radiotherapy or chemotherapy or combination of both. Surgical excision is generally the last option considered for advanced and metastatic disease, given the close proximity of nasopharynx to brain stem cell area, major blood vessels, and nerves. To improve outcome of NPC patients, novel cellular and in vivo systems are needed to allow an understanding of the underling molecular events causal for NPC pathogenesis and for identifying novel therapeutic targets and effective therapies. While challenges and gaps in current NPC research are noted, some advances in targeted therapies and immunotherapies targeting EBV NPCs are discussed in this chapter, which may offer improvements in outcome of NPC patients