E-Collaboration Impacts in Australia and Hong Kong

This paper investigates e-collaboration impacts across organizations in Australia and Hong Kong. The two regions were selected because of diversity in geographical dispersion and cultural differences. A myriad of e-collaboration activities were included in the study. Data collected and analyzed from 73 organizations in Australia and 94 organizations in Hong Kong suggests that there are no significant differences in the level of electronic support for collaboration activities in both the regions. However, significant differences were detected in the perceived impacts of e-collaboration between the two study regions. Interestingly, there was high level of agreement on ranking of e-collaboration activities and perceived e-collaboration impacts in both the regions. Implications of our findings for practice and research are discussed

Barriers to EMS assimilation in the US, Australia, Hong Kong, Norway and Switzerland: A Cross regional comparison

Electronic Meeting Systems (EMS) have the capabilities to support group members in task collaboration. While there have been many case studies and lab experiments on how EMS can support group tasks, large scale macro investigations exploring EMS adoption and use have been practically non-existent. Furthermore, while several EMS assimilation barriers have been suggested, their validation across organizations remains unexplored. In this paper, we describe a global initiative to explore information technology support for task-oriented collaboration in the US, Australia, Hong Kong, Norway and Switzerland. We focus specifically on EMS and investigate their adoption, use and assimilation barriers in organizations across the five regions. Our results suggest that EMS adoption and use is limited across all the regions. A further investigation in EMS assimilation barriers suggests that these barriers differ across the regions and there is little agreement over how they are ranked. Implications of our findings are discussed for practitioners and researchers

Investigating the enabling factors influencing occupational therapists’ adoption of assisted living technology

Introduction Research into technology adoption has focused on older adults’ motivations, with less exploration of the perspective of healthcare providers, including occupational therapists, who are often described as the gatekeepers to assisted living technology. Method This qualitative study utilized semi-structured interviews and focus groups with 20 occupational therapists in England and Scotland. The goal was to identify those enabling factors necessary for occupational therapists to adopt assisted living technology. Results Five themes emerged regarding the enablers needed to support the adoption of assisted living technology by occupational therapists, including: (1) a positive client–therapist relationship; (2) affordability; (3) time; (4) increased awareness, education, and training; and (5) usability features of the assisted living technology. Conclusion With an aging population and the increasing role that technology is playing globally in older adults’ lives, it has never been more important for occupational therapists to harness the potential of new, developing, and existing technologies to support people to live and age as well as possible. To accomplish this, however, requires that occupational therapists are equipped with the time, training, and education necessary to offer their clients assisted living technologies that are client-centered, usable, and affordabl

Novel Thieno [2,3-b]pyridine Anticancer Compound Lowers Cancer Stem Cell Fraction Inducing Shift of Lipid to Glucose Metabolism.

Due to the role of cancer stem cells (CSCs) in tumor resistance and glycosphingolipid (GSL) involvement in tumor pathogenesis, we investigated the effect of a newly synthesized compound (3-amino-N-(3-chloro-2-methylphenyl)-5-oxo-5,6,7,8-tetrahydrothieno[2,3-b]quinoline-2-carboxamide 1 on the percentage of CSCs and the expression of six GSLs on CSCs and non-CSCs on breast cancer cell lines (MDA-MB-231 and MCF-7). We also investigated the effect of 1 on the metabolic profile of these cell lines. The MTT assay was used for cytotoxicity determination. Apoptosis and expression of GSLs were assessed by flow cytometry. A GC-MS-coupled system was used for the separation and identification of metabolites. Compound 1 was cytotoxic for both cell lines, and the majority of cells died by treatment-induced apoptosis. The percentage of CSCs was significantly lower in the MDA-MB-231 cell line. Treatment with 1 caused a decrease of CSC IV6Neu5Ac-nLc4Cer+ MDA-MB-231 cells. In the MCF-7 cell line, the percentage of GalNAc-GM1b+ CSCs was increased, while the expression of Gg3Cer was decreased in both CSC and non-CSC. Twenty-one metabolites were identified by metabolic profiling. The major impact of the treatment was in glycolysis/gluconeogenesis, pyruvate and inositol metabolism. Compound 1 exhibited higher potency in MBA-MB-231 cells, and it deserves further examination

Navika tjelesne aktivnosti kod autora koji su objavljivali u Hrvatskom časopisu za javno zdravstvo

Navike se mogu definirati kao stečeni oblik ponašanja. Navike nastaju višestrukim, višegodišnjim, ponavljanjem odgovarajućih pokreta ili radnji. Postoje razne vrste navika npr. navike ponašanja, higijenske navike, radne navike itd. Neke od njih su pozitivne, a neke negativne. Tjelesna aktivnost je primjer pozitivne navike, koja pridonosi poboljšanju psiho-fizičkog stanja čovjeka, te je stog vrlo važna u primarnoj prevenciji niza kroničnih i akutnih bolesti. Da bi se stvorila navika redovitog tjelesnog vježbanja potrebno je, unatoč fizičkom zamoru koji proizlazi iz same aktivnosti, ponavljati odgovarajuće vježbe ili aktivnosti iz dana u dan, iz godine u godinu. Kada organizam počne prepoznavati umor u vrijeme treninga, a pogotovo nakon treninga, kao vrhunac ugode, tada možete biti sigurni da ste ovisnik o jednoj pozitivnoj navici- tjelesnoj aktivnosti.

Clonally resolved single-cell multi-omics identifies routes of cellular differentiation in acute myeloid leukemia

Inter-patient variability and the similarity of healthy and leukemic stem cells (LSCs) have impeded the characterization of LSCs in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and their differentiation landscape. Here, we introduce CloneTracer, a novel method that adds clonal resolution to single-cell RNA-seq datasets. Applied to samples from 19 AML patients, CloneTracer revealed routes of leukemic differentiation. Although residual healthy and preleukemic cells dominated the dormant stem cell compartment, active LSCs resembled their healthy counterpart and retained erythroid capacity. By contrast, downstream myeloid progenitors constituted a highly aberrant, disease-defining compartment: their gene expression and differentiation state affected both the chemotherapy response and leukemia's ability to differentiate into transcriptomically normal monocytes. Finally, we demonstrated the potential of CloneTracer to identify surface markers misregulated specifically in leukemic cells. Taken together, CloneTracer reveals a differentiation landscape that mimics its healthy counterpart and may determine biology and therapy response in AML