Evaluating a theory-based intervention for improving eHealth literacy in older adults: a single group, pretest–posttest design

All authors wish to express their gratitude to our participants for their enthusiastic participation in the intervention over a long five-week period. Also, all authors are deeply grateful to The National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning for their support (Grant No. NRF-2017R1C1B5017768).Background The Internet is considered an important channel for providing health information to older adults. We developed an intervention to improve eHealth literacy in older adults according to the information-motivation-behavioral skills (IMB) theory and Intervention Mapping. This study aimed to analyze the effect of a developed intervention on information, motivation, behavioral skills, and behaviors related to eHealth information in older adults. Methods Forty-six older adults over the age of 65 were recruited from two senior welfare centers in a city in South Korea. We divided the participants into four groups and conducted one intervention per group from March to December 2019. One intervention consisted of 5 sessions and was performed once a week (2 h/1 time) for 5 weeks, culminating in a total lecture time of 10 h. One lecture instructor and two assistant instructors supported the participants in the computer practices. Results Participants’ computer/web knowledge, perceived ease of use, perceived enjoyment, and attitude toward eHealth information showed statistically significant increases. The eHealth literacy efficacy score, searching performance score, and understanding score were also significantly increased. However, there was no significant difference in perceived usefulness. Conclusion The application of the current theory-based methodology can improve the quality of research in eHealth literacy. Additionally, various interventions should be developed and continuously applied to improve eHealth literacy among older adults.This work was supported by The National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning for their support (Grant No. NRF-2017R1C1B5017768)

The Howl - Fall 2016

The Howl is a magazine that is planned, researched, written, photographed and designed by Otterbein University\u27s ESL and international students. The magazine serves to give them a safe space in which to use their voice to share their cultures, experiences and lives. If you are interested in submitting to The Howl, please email your writing or photography to [email protected]://digitalcommons.otterbein.edu/the_howl/1001/thumbnail.jp

Incorporating a real-time automatic alerting system based on electronic medical records could improve rapid response systems: a retrospective cohort study

Background Rapid response systems (RRSs) are essential components of patient safety systems; however, limited evidence exists regarding their effectiveness and optimal structures. We aimed to assess the activation patterns and outcomes of RRS implementation with/without a real-time automatic alerting system (AAS) based on electronic medical records (EMRs). Methods We retrospectively analyzed clinical data of patients for whom the RRS was activated in the surgical wards of a tertiary university hospital. We compared the code rate, in-hospital mortality, unplanned intensive care unit (ICU) admission, and other clinical outcomes before and after applying RRS and AAS as follows: pre-RRS (January 2013–July 2015), RRS without AAS (August 2015–November 2016), and RRS with AAS (December 2016–December 2017). Results In-hospital mortality per 1000 admissions decreased from 15.1 to 12.9 after RRS implementation (p < 0.001). RRS activation per 1000 admissions increased from 14.4 to 26.3 after AAS implementation. The severity of patients condition calculated using the modified early warning score increased from 2.5 (± 2.1) in the RRS without AAS to 3.6 (± 2.1) (p < 0.001) in the RRS with AAS. The total and preventable code rates and in-hospital mortality rates were comparable between the RRS implementation periods without/with AAS. ICU duration and mortality results improved in patients with RRS activation and unplanned ICU admission. The data of RRS non-activated group remained unaltered during the study. Conclusions Real-time AAS based on EMRs might help identify unstable patients. Early detection and intervention with RRS may improve patient outcomes.The author(s) received no fnancial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article

Water striders adjust leg movement speed to optimize takeoff velocity for their morphology

Water striders are water-walking insects that can jump upwards from the water surface. Quick jumps allow striders to avoid sudden dangers such as predators&apos; attacks, and therefore their jumping is expected to be shaped by natural selection for optimal performance. Related species with different morphological constraints could require different jumping mechanics to successfully avoid predation. Here we show that jumping striders tune their leg rotation speed to reach the maximum jumping speed that water surface allows. We find that the leg stroke speeds of water strider species with different leg morphologies correspond to mathematically calculated morphology-specific optima that maximize vertical takeoff velocity by fully exploiting the capillary force of water. These results improve the understanding of correlated evolution between morphology and leg movements in small jumping insects, and provide a theoretical basis to develop biomimetic technology in semi-aquatic environments.1

Co-chaperone BAG2 Determines the Pro-oncogenic Role of Cathepsin B in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Cells

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is considered incurable with currently available treatments, highlighting the need for therapeutic targets and predictive biomarkers. Here, we report a unique role for Bcl-2-associated athanogene 2 (BAG2), which is significantly overexpressed in TNBC, in regulating the dual functions of cathepsin B as either a pro- or anti-oncogenic enzyme. Silencing BAG2 suppresses tumorigenesis and lung metastasis and induces apoptosis by increasing the intracellular mature form of cathepsin B, whereas BAG2 expression induces metastasis by blocking the auto-cleavage processing of pro-cathepsin B via interaction with the propeptide region. BAG2 regulates pro-cathepsin B/annexin II complex formation and facilitates the trafficking of pro-cathespin-B-containing TGN38-positive vesicles toward the cell periphery, leading to the secretion of pro-cathepsin B, which induces metastasis. Collectively, our results uncover BAG2 as a regulator of the oncogenic function of pro-cathepsin B and a potential diagnostic and therapeutic target that may reduce the burden of metastatic breast cancer

Water strider females use individual experience to adjust jumping behaviour to their weight within physical constraints of water surface tension

Different species of water striders match leg speeds to their body sizes to maximize their jump take off velocity without breaking the water surface, which might have aided evolution of leg structures optimized for exploitation of the water surface tension. It is not understood how water striders achieve this match. Can individuals modify their leg movements based on their body mass and locomotor experience? Here we tested if water striders, Gerris latiabdominis, adjust jumping behaviour based on their personal experience and how an experimentally added body weight affects this process. Females, but not males, modified their jumping behaviour in weight-dependent manner, but only when they experienced frequent jumping. They did so within the environmental constraint set by the physics of water surface tension. Females’ ability to adjust jumping may represent their adaptation to frequent increases or decreases of the weight that they support as mating bouts, during which males ride on top of females, start or end, respectively. This suggests that natural selection for optimized biomechanics combined with sexual selection for mating adaptations shapes this ability to optimally exploit water surface tension, which might have aided adaptive radiation of Gerromorpha into a diversity of semiaquatic niches. © 2020, The Author(s).1

Munc18c phosphorylation by the insulin receptor links cell signaling directly to SNARE exocytosis

SNARE complex assembly and mobilization of GLUT4 vesicles is coordinated through direct targeting of Munc18c by the insulin receptor tyrosine kinase

Effect of shared decision-making education on physicians’ perceptions and practices of end-of-life care in Korea

Background Evidence of the ethical appropriateness and clinical benefits of shared decision-making (SDM) are accumulating. This study aimed to not only identify physicians’ perspectives on SDM, and practices related to end-of-life care in particular, but also to gauge the effect of SDM education on physicians in Korea. Methods A 14-item questionnaire survey using a modified Delphi process was delivered to nephrologists and internal medicine trainees at 17 university hospitals. Results A total of 309 physicians completed the survey. Although respondents reported that 69.9% of their practical decisions were made using SDM, 59.9% reported that it is not being applied appropriately. Only 12.3% of respondents had received education on SDM as part of their training. The main obstacles to appropriate SDM were identified as lack of time (46.0%), educational materials and tools (29.4%), and education on SDM (24.3%). Although only a few respondents had received training on SDM, the proportion of those who thought they were using SDM appropriately in actual practice was high; the proportion of those who chose lack of time and education as factors that hindered the proper application of SDM was low. Conclusion The majority of respondents believed that SDM was not being implemented properly in Korea, despite its use in actual practice. To improve the effectiveness of SDM in the Korean medical system, appropriate training programs and supplemental policies that guarantee sufficient application time are required

Prevalence and detection of low-allele-fraction variants in clinical cancer samples

Accurate detection of genomic alterations using high-throughput sequencing is an essential component of precision cancer medicine. We characterize the variant allele fractions (VAFs) of somatic single nucleotide variants and indels across 5095 clinical samples profiled using a custom panel, CancerSCAN. Our results demonstrate that a significant fraction of clinically actionable variants have low VAFs, often due to low tumor purity and treatment-induced mutations. The percentages of mutations under 5% VAF across hotspots in EGFR, KRAS, PIK3CA, and BRAF are 16%, 11%, 12%, and 10%, respectively, with 24% for EGFR T790M and 17% for PIK3CA E545. For clinical relevance, we describe two patients for whom targeted therapy achieved remission despite low VAF mutations. We also characterize the read depths necessary to achieve sensitivity and specificity comparable to current laboratory assays. These results show that capturing low VAF mutations at hotspots by sufficient sequencing coverage and carefully tuned algorithms is imperative for a clinical assay

25th annual computational neuroscience meeting: CNS-2016

The same neuron may play different functional roles in the neural circuits to which it belongs. For example, neurons in the Tritonia pedal ganglia may participate in variable phases of the swim motor rhythms [1]. While such neuronal functional variability is likely to play a major role the delivery of the functionality of neural systems, it is difficult to study it in most nervous systems. We work on the pyloric rhythm network of the crustacean stomatogastric ganglion (STG) [2]. Typically network models of the STG treat neurons of the same functional type as a single model neuron (e.g. PD neurons), assuming the same conductance parameters for these neurons and implying their synchronous firing [3, 4]. However, simultaneous recording of PD neurons shows differences between the timings of spikes of these neurons. This may indicate functional variability of these neurons. Here we modelled separately the two PD neurons of the STG in a multi-neuron model of the pyloric network. Our neuron models comply with known correlations between conductance parameters of ionic currents. Our results reproduce the experimental finding of increasing spike time distance between spikes originating from the two model PD neurons during their synchronised burst phase. The PD neuron with the larger calcium conductance generates its spikes before the other PD neuron. Larger potassium conductance values in the follower neuron imply longer delays between spikes, see Fig. 17.Neuromodulators change the conductance parameters of neurons and maintain the ratios of these parameters [5]. Our results show that such changes may shift the individual contribution of two PD neurons to the PD-phase of the pyloric rhythm altering their functionality within this rhythm. Our work paves the way towards an accessible experimental and computational framework for the analysis of the mechanisms and impact of functional variability of neurons within the neural circuits to which they belong