Incorporating theories into a course in international business communication

Conference Theme: Research into Practice in the Four-year curriculumIn developing a business communication course for a group of business majors on an elite international business degree programme at the University of Hong Kong, cross-cultural communication theories and relevant research findings were incorporated into the syllabus and these underpin all the in-class activities and assessments. Central to the aims of the 2012 four-year curriculum is to broaden the experience of university students in Hong Kong and enhance their communication skills in the global market through various experiential learning opportunities, broadening courses and exchange programmes. Our presentation will describe how we incorporated experiential learning into the teaching of business communication skills and explore how different elements of the course are informed by theories in the area of cross-cultural communication. We also discuss how we view our roles as co-developers and co-teachers in the process of updating and improving the course and the implications of our approach for course design and teacher development.published_or_final_versio

A deep level set method for image segmentation

This paper proposes a novel image segmentation approachthat integrates fully convolutional networks (FCNs) with a level setmodel. Compared with a FCN, the integrated method can incorporatesmoothing and prior information to achieve an accurate segmentation.Furthermore, different than using the level set model as a post-processingtool, we integrate it into the training phase to fine-tune the FCN. Thisallows the use of unlabeled data during training in a semi-supervisedsetting. Using two types of medical imaging data (liver CT and left ven-tricle MRI data), we show that the integrated method achieves goodperformance even when little training data is available, outperformingthe FCN or the level set model alone

Effects of Occupational Noise Exposure on 24-Hour Ambulatory Vascular Properties in Male Workers

BACKGROUND: Epidemiologic studies have demonstrated that occupational noise exposure is associated with hypertension, but the related mechanism in vascular structural changes is unclear. OBJECTIVE: This panel study aimed to investigate effects of occupational noise exposure on ambulatory vascular structural properties in male workers. METHODS: We recruited 20 volunteers and divided them into a high-noise- exposure group of 15 and a low-noise-exposure group of 5 based on environmental noise measurement in an automobile manufacturing company. We determined individual noise exposure and measured personal ambulatory vascular property parameters simultaneously during 24 hr. Linear mixed-effects regression models were used to estimate transient and sustained effects of noise exposure on vascular parameters by adjusting some confounders collected from self- administrated questionnaires and health checkups. RESULTS: The high-noise- exposed (85 ± 8 dBA) workers had significantly higher systemic vascular resistance (SVR) than the low-noise-exposed workers (59 ± 4 dBA) during work and sleep periods. Contrarily, low-noise-exposed workers had significantly higher brachial artery compliance (BAC), brachial artery distensibility (BAD), and systemic vascular compliance (SVC; marginal, p = 0.07) than high-noise-exposed workers during off-duty periods. We also found that high- noise-exposed workers had significantly lower BAC (1.38 ± 0 .55 %mL/mmHg) and BAD (1.29 ± 0.51 %/mmHg), as well as lower SVC (0. 24 ± 0.10 mL/L/mmHg), but higher SVR (1.93 ±0.67 mL/L/min) compared with low-noise-exposed workers over a 24-hr period. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that in automobile workers, occupational noise exposure may have sustained, not transient, effects on vascular properties and also enhances the development of hypertension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Environmental Health Perspectives is the property of Superintendent of Documents and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts

The importance for immunoregulation for long-term cancer control.

Immune checkpoint blockades have recently emerged as a breakthrough treatment for solid tumors showing high response rates and long durability. In melanoma, the combination of ipilimumab with nivolumab showed high efficacy. However, still half the patients do not respond to this treatment. In order to increase the therapeutic ratio in melanoma and other cancers, different approaches are under evaluation. Three relevant questions are at the moment driving the research community: how to maximize benefit while minimizing toxicity; how to better identify patients who are more likely to benefit from immunotherapy; how to convert nonresponders into responders. In this review we summarize the most recent findings and we outline the most likely future challenges

Combined adsorption and biological treatment for landfill leachate management

Although landfilling is generally used for solid waste disposal, use of landfill will always accompanied with production of turbid, odorous and dark brownish liquid which known as leachate. Due to leachate adverse impacts towards public health, environment and ecosystem, raw leachate wastewater should be treated properly before discharging into the environment and leachate wastewater can be treated biologically, physically and chemically. The treatment efficiency will be mainly affected by leachate composition and treatment method. In this study, B. panacihumi strain ZB1 was used for leachate biological treatment and light weight aggregates was used as adsorbent for pollutants removal. The leachate samples were treated by combined adsorption and biological treatment. Sole biological treatment removes nearly 40% of COD and nearly 40-50% of ammonia nitrogen from leachate samples. Adsorbent able to remove high levels of ammonia nitrogen and increase of adsorbent doses would increase the removal efficiency. Due to cost and efficiency consideration, combined adsorption and biological treatment had been applied for leachate management. Combined treatment allowed more than 70% of ammonia nitrogen from leachate wastewater. Since removal of COD from leachate wastewater does not being reported in this study, other treatment methods or optimization step should be carried out

Inhibition of yes-associated protein suppresses brain metastasis of human lung adenocarcinoma in a murine model.

Yes-associated protein (YAP) is a main mediator of the Hippo pathway and promotes cancer development and progression in human lung cancer. We sought to determine whether inhibition of YAP suppresses metastasis of human lung adenocarcinoma in a murine model. We found that metastatic NSCLC cell lines H2030-BrM3(K-rasG12C mutation) and PC9-BrM3 (EGFRΔexon19 mutation) had a significantly decreased p-YAP(S127)/YAP ratio compared to parental H2030 (K-rasG12C mutation) and PC9 (EGFRΔexon19 mutation) cells (P < .05). H2030-BrM3 cells had significantly increased YAP mRNA and expression of Hippo downstream genes CTGF and CYR61 compared to parental H2030 cells (P < .05). Inhibition of YAP by short hairpin RNA (shRNA) and small interfering RNA (siRNA) significantly decreased mRNA expression in downstream genes CTGF and CYR61 in H2030-BrM3 cells (P < .05). In addition, inhibiting YAP by YAP shRNA significantly decreased migration and invasion abilities of H2030-BrM3 cells (P < .05). We are first to show that mice inoculated with YAP shRNA-transfected H2030-BrM3 cells had significantly decreased metastatic tumour burden and survived longer than control mice (P < .05). Collectively, our results suggest that YAP plays an important role in promoting lung adenocarcinoma brain metastasis and that direct inhibition of YAP by shRNA suppresses H2030-BrM3 cell brain metastasis in a murine model

Analysis of 137 obstetric fistula cases seen at three fistula centres in northwest Nigeria

Objectives: To determine the contributory factors to development of obstetric fistula and to determine the knowledge and practice of modern contraception among fistula patients.Design: Descriptive hospital cross-sectional study.Setting: Three fistula centres in north west Nigeria.Subjects: All obstetric fistula patients that met the inclusion criteria.Results: Of 137 cases of obstetric fistula patients that satisfied the inclusion criteria, 88% had only Vesico-vaginal fistula, while 10% and 2% had recto-vaginal fistula, and combined vesico vaginal fistula and recto-vaginal fistula respectively. All the patients had early marriage (before age 20 years) with median ages at first marriage of 15 years and at presentation in hospital of 16 years. Majority (93.4%) of the patients developed fistula during the first delivery. Approximately two-third of the patients had no form of education. Only 42.3% of the patients received antenatal care and 86% delivered at home. Only 28% of the patients was aware of modern contraception and 2% had used modern contraceptive before developing fistula. All the patients expressed willingness to use modern contraception after fistula repair.Conclusion: This study shows that child marriage, low education, unskilled birth attendance and low contraceptive uptake are common among the obstetric fistula patients in north west Nigeria. Public advocacy and formulation of laws and policies to protect girls from early marriage, girl child education to secondary school level be encouraged, public education on the importance of and utilisation of maternity and modern family planning services

Online platform for applying space–time scan statistics for prospectively detecting emerging hot spots of dengue fever

Abstract Background Cases of dengue fever have increased in areas of Southeast Asia in recent years. Taiwan hit a record-high 42,856 cases in 2015, with the majority in southern Tainan and Kaohsiung Cities. Leveraging spatial statistics and geo-visualization techniques, we aim to design an online analytical tool for local public health workers to prospectively identify ongoing hot spots of dengue fever weekly at the village level. Methods A total of 57,516 confirmed cases of dengue fever in 2014 and 2015 were obtained from the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control (TCDC). Incorporating demographic information as covariates with cumulative cases (365 days) in a discrete Poisson model, we iteratively applied space–time scan statistics by SaTScan software to detect the currently active cluster of dengue fever (reported as relative risk) in each village of Tainan and Kaohsiung every week. A village with a relative risk >1 and p value <0.05 was identified as a dengue-epidemic area. Assuming an ongoing transmission might continuously spread for two consecutive weeks, we estimated the sensitivity and specificity for detecting outbreaks by comparing the scan-based classification (dengue-epidemic vs. dengue-free village) with the true cumulative case numbers from the TCDC’s surveillance statistics. Results Among the 1648 villages in Tainan and Kaohsiung, the overall sensitivity for detecting outbreaks increases as case numbers grow in a total of 92 weekly simulations. The specificity for detecting outbreaks behaves inversely, compared to the sensitivity. On average, the mean sensitivity and specificity of 2-week hot spot detection were 0.615 and 0.891 respectively (p value <0.001) for the covariate adjustment model, as the maximum spatial and temporal windows were specified as 50% of the total population at risk and 28 days. Dengue-epidemic villages were visualized and explored in an interactive map. Conclusions We designed an online analytical tool for front-line public health workers to prospectively detect ongoing dengue fever transmission on a weekly basis at the village level by using the routine surveillance data

Liquid-Crystal-Based Phase Gratings and Beam Steerers for Terahertz Waves

We review our theoretical and experimental studies on a class of liquid crystal (LC) photonic devices, i.e., terahertz (THz) phase gratings and beam steerers by using LCs. Such gratings can function as a THz polarizer and tunable THz beam splitters. The beam splitting ratio of the zeroth-order diffraction to the first-order diffraction by the grating can be tuned from 10:1 to 3:5. Gratings with two different base dimensions were prepared. The insertion loss is lower by approximately 2.5 dB for the one with the smaller base. The response times of the gratings were also studied and were long (tens of seconds) as expected because of the thick LC layer used. Accordingly, the devices are not suitable for applications that require fast modulation. However, they are suitable for instrumentation or apparatuses that require precise control, e.g., an apparatus requiring a fixed beam splitting ratio with occasional fine tuning. Schemes for speeding up the device responses were proposed. Based on the grating structure, we also achieved an electrically tunable THz beam steerer. Broadband THz radiation can be steered by 8.5° with respect to the incident beam by varying the driving voltages to yield the designed phase gradient