An exploration of factors related to quality of life in Indonesian care workers in home-based care settings

Background Indonesians constituted 79% of foreign care workers for long-term care in Taiwan in 2015. Therefore, it is crucial to explore the effect of work stress and quality of life (QoL) on this population.Purpose This study aims to explore stress levels, social support requirements, and perceived QoL among Indonesian care workers (ICWs) who work in home care settings.Methods A cross-sectional design was used. Data were collected between 2014 and 2016 from a convenience sample of ICWs working in eastern Taiwan using a self-administered questionnaire that comprised the Stress Perception Scale (SPS), Social Support Scale (SSS), and World Health Organization Quality of Life-Brief scale. One hundred fifty-seven valid questionnaires were collected. The response rate was 80.51%. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, one-way analysis of variance, Pearson's correlation coefficient, and multiple regression analysis.Results The results found that the average SPS of the sample was 70.50, with low QoL scores and requirements for more social support. In addition, significant and positive correlations were found between QoL and SPS, SSS, duration of patient care, and hours of care per week. Stepwise regression analysis showed that the most predictive variables for QoL were time spent caring, preservice training, psychological stress, and emotional support, which together accounted for 60.9% of the total variance.Conclusions/Implications for Practice This study facilitated understanding of the stress on ICWs and the impact of social support on their QoL. The findings suggest that new immigrants in Taiwan should be introduced to foreign care workers or nursing attendants. Moreover, long-term-care-related teachers should work with home care institutions or agencies to develop a teaching model for innovative care skills to relieve the perceived stress of ICWs

Ultra-fast, programmable, and electronics-free soft robots enabled by snapping metacaps

Soft robots have a myriad of potentials because of their intrinsically compliant bodies, enabling safe interactions with humans and adaptability to unpredictable environments. However, most of them have limited actuation speeds, require complex control systems, and lack sensing capabilities. To address these challenges, here we geometrically design a class of metacaps whose rich nonlinear mechanical behaviors can be harnessed to create soft robots with unprecedented functionalities. Specifically, we demonstrate a sensor-less metacap gripper that can grasp objects in 3.75 ms upon physical contact and a pneumatically actuated gripper with tunable actuation behaviors that have little dependence on the rate of input. Both grippers can be readily integrated into a robotic platform for practical applications. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the metacap enables propelling of a swimming robot, exhibiting amplified swimming speed as well as untethered, electronics-free swimming with tunable speeds. Our metacaps provide new strategies to design the next-generation soft robots that require high transient output energy and are capable of autonomous and electronics-free maneuvering.Comment: 19 pages, 5 figure

Blood leukocyte Alu and LINE-1 methylation and gastric cancer risk in the Shanghai Women's Health Study

Background: Recent data suggest a link between blood leukocyte DNA methylation, and cancer risk. However, reports on DNA methylation from a prospective study are unavailable for gastric cancer. Methods: We explored the association between methylation in pre-diagnostic blood leukocyte DNA and gastric cancer risk in a case–control study nested in the prospective Shanghai Women's Health Study cohort. Incident gastric cancer cases (n=192) and matched controls (n=384) were included in the study. Methylation of Alu and long interspersed nucleotide elements (LINE)-1 were evaluated using bisulphite pyrosequencing. Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated from logistic regression adjusting for potential confounders. Results: Alu methylation was inversely associated with gastric cancer risk, mainly among cases diagnosed one or more years after blood collection. After excluding cases diagnosed during the first year of follow-up, the ORs for the third, second, and first quartiles of Alu methylation compared with the highest quartile were 2.43 (1.43–4.13), 1.47(0.85–2.57), and 2.22 (1.28–3.84), respectively. This association appeared to be modified by dietary intake, particularly isoflavone. In contrast, LINE-1 methylation levels were not associated with gastric cancer risk. Conclusion: Evidence from this prospective study is consistent with the hypothesis that DNA hypomethylation in blood leukocytes may be related to cancer risk, including risk of gastric cancer

Confront Holographic QCD with Regge Trajectories of vectors and axial-vectors

We derive the general 5-dimension metric structure of the $Dp-Dq$ system in type II superstring theory, and demonstrate the physical meaning of the parameters characterizing the 5-dimension metric structure of the \textit{holographic} QCD model by relating them to the parameters describing Regge trajectories. By matching the spectra of vector mesons $\rho_1$ with deformed $Dp-Dq$ soft-wall model, we find that the spectra of vector mesons $\rho_1$ can be described very well in the soft-wall $D3-Dq$ model, i.e, $AdS_5$ soft-wall model. We then investigate how well the $AdS_5$ soft-wall model can describe the Regge trajectory of axial-vector mesons $a_1$. We find that the constant component of the 5-dimension mass square of axial-vector mesons plays an efficient role to realize the chiral symmetry breaking in the vacuum, and a small negative $z^4$ correction in the 5-dimension mass square is helpful to realize the chiral symmetry restoration in high excitation states.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figure and 3 tables, one section adde

Three-dimensional CFD simulations with large displacement of the geometries using a connectivity-change moving mesh approach

This paper deals with three-dimensional (3D) numerical simulations involving 3D moving geometries with large displacements on unstructured meshes. Such simulations are of great value to industry, but remain very time-consuming. A robust moving mesh algorithm coupling an elasticity-like mesh deformation solution and mesh optimizations was proposed in previous works, which removes the need for global remeshing when performing large displacements. The optimizations, and in particular generalized edge/face swapping, preserve the initial quality of the mesh throughout the simulation. We propose to integrate an Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian compressible flow solver into this process to demonstrate its capabilities in a full CFD computation context. This solver relies on a local enforcement of the discrete geometric conservation law to preserve the order of accuracy of the time integration. The displacement of the geometries is either imposed, or driven by fluid–structure interaction (FSI). In the latter case, the six degrees of freedom approach for rigid bodies is considered. Finally, several 3D imposed-motion and FSI examples are given to validate the proposed approach, both in academic and industrial configurations

Dietary fat intake and lung cancer risk: a pooled analysis

Purpose Dietary fat may play a role in lung carcinogenesis. Findings from epidemiologic studies, however, remain inconsistent. In this pooled analysis of 10 prospective cohort studies from the United States, Europe, and Asia, we evaluated the associations of total and specific types of dietary fat with lung cancer risk. Methods Cox regression was used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% CIs in each cohort. Study-specific risk estimates were pooled by random- or fixed-effects meta-analysis. The first 2 years of follow-up were excluded to address potential influence of preclinical dietary changes. Results Among 1,445,850 participants, 18,822 incident cases were identified (mean follow-up, 9.4 years). High intakes of total and saturated fat were associated with an increased risk of lung cancer (for highest v lowest quintile: HR, 1.07 and 1.14, respectively; 95% CI, 1.00 to 1.15 and 1.07 to 1.22, respectively; P for trend for both < .001). The positive association of saturated fat was more evident among current smokers (HR, 1.23; 95% CI, 1.13 to 1.35; P for trend < .001) than former/never smokers (P for interaction = .004), and for squamous cell and small cell carcinoma (HR, 1.61 and 1.40, respectively; 95% CI, 1.38 to 1.88 and 1.17 to 1.67, respectively; P for trend for both < .001) than other histologic types (P for heterogeneity < .001). In contrast, a high intake of polyunsaturated fat was associated with a decreased risk of lung cancer (HR, 0.92; 95% CI, 0.87 to 0.98 for highest v lowest quintile; P for trend = .02). A 5% energy substitution of saturated fat with polyunsaturated fat was associated with a 16% to 17% lower risk of small cell and squamous cell carcinoma. No associations were found for monounsaturated fat. Conclusion Findings from this large, international cohort consortium suggest that modifying dietary fat intake (ie, replacing saturated fat with polyunsaturated fat) may reduce lung cancer risk, particularly among smokers and for squamous cell and small cell carcinoma