Background: With 1 in 3 adults globally living with chronic conditions and the rise in smartphone ownership, mobile health apps have become a prominent tool for managing lifestyle-related health behaviors and mental health. However, high rates of app abandonment pose challenges to their effectiveness.
Objective: We explored the abandonment of apps used for managing physical activity, diet, alcohol, smoking, and mental health in free-living conditions, examining the duration of app use before abandonment and the underlying reasons.
Background: Children and adolescents' physical inactivity is a global problem. Financial incentives are increasingly utilised to support children's participation in sport, with programs introduced in multiple jurisdictions globally, however few programs have comprehensive evaluations. This study used a Delphi methodology to develop evaluation recommendations for an existing population-wide financial incentive program based in South Australia.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Am Soc Mass Spectrom
November 2024
Post expression from the host cells, biotherapeutics undergo downstream processing steps before final formulation. Mass spectrometry and biophysical characterization methods are valuable for examining conformational and stoichiometric changes at these stages, although typically not used in biomanufacturing, where stability is assessed via bulk property studies. Here we apply hybrid MS methods to understand how solution condition changes impact the structural integrity of a biopharmaceutical across the processing pipeline.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Competency-based medical education (CBME) requires a variety of assessments evaluating resident performance. Assessment form design may influence narrative feedback quality. To evaluate the effect of including targeted written comment prompts in entrustable professional activity (EPA) assessment forms on the quality of narrative feedback in CBME ophthalmology resident trainee assessments.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCan J Sci Math and Technol Educ
December 2023
This qualitative study examines the influence of a 3-year professional development project for middle school mathematics, science, and special education teachers focused on integrating science, mathematics, and engineering in classroom instruction on participants' understandings of productive struggle in learning. Multi-disciplinary teams of teachers engaged as learners to use engineering design as a framework for integrating significant mathematics and science content supported by effective teaching practices. In this paper, we describe how the components of our professional development design supported teacher-participants to make sense of productive struggle in learning.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Wearable activity trackers, including fitness bands and smartwatches, offer the potential for disease detection by monitoring physiological parameters. However, their accuracy as specific disease diagnostic tools remains uncertain.
Objective: This systematic review and meta-analysis aims to evaluate whether wearable activity trackers can be used to detect disease and medical events.
Previous in vitro studies in our laboratory demonstrated that ethyl acetate (P) and water- soluble (PS/PT1) fractionated leaf extracts of inhibit the proliferation of prostate cancer cells. It has been reported that the crude aqueous extract induces apoptosis in lung adenocarcinoma cells; however, the efficacy of the fractionated extracts against these cells remains unclear. In the present study, we hypothesized that the ability of the fractionated extracts to inhibit proliferation and induce apoptosis is associated with the activation of pro-apoptotic proteins and induction of DNA condensation in A549 cells.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPoor diet is a major risk factor for non-communicable disease. The aims of this study were to describe temporal patterns and seasonal changes in diet across the year in Australian adults. A total of 375 adults from a prospective cohort study conducted between 1 December 2019 and 31 December 2021 in Adelaide, Australia, were asked to complete the Dietary Questionnaire for Epidemiological Studies at eight timepoints over a year.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Children's physical activity and screen time behaviours impact their physical health and well-being. In Australia, less than half of children meet daily physical activity recommendations and only one-third meet daily screen time recommendations. Nearly half a million Australian school children aged 5-12 attend Outside School Hours Care (OSHC) weekly, activities undertaken at OSHC play a key role in meeting these recommendations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Trials demonstrating benefits of tamoxifen for women with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) were published > 20 years ago; yet subsequent uptake of endocrine therapy was low. We estimated endocrine therapy initiation in women with DCIS between 2001 and 2018 in a community setting, reflecting more recent years of diagnosis than previous studies.
Methods: This retrospective cohort included adult females ≥ 20 years diagnosed with first primary DCIS between 2001 and 2018, followed through 2019, and enrolled in one of three U.
Transmembrane transition metal transporter proteins are central gatekeepers in selectively controlling vectorial metal cargo uptake and extrusion across cellular membranes in all living organisms, thus playing key roles in essential and toxic metal homeostasis. Biochemical characterization of transporter-mediated translocation events and transport kinetics of redox-active metals, such as iron and copper, is challenged by the complexity in generating reconstituted systems in which vectorial metal transport can be studied in real time. We present fluorescence-based proteoliposome methods to monitor redox-active metal transmembrane translocation upon reconstitution of purified metal transporters in artificial lipid bilayers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCompared with the general population, hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) survivors are at elevated risk for developing solid subsequent neoplasms (SNs). The Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research (CIBMTR) is a key resource for quantifying solid SN incidence following HCT, but the completeness of SN ascertainment is uncertain. Within a cohort of 18 450 CIBMTR patients linked to the California Cancer Registry (CCR), we evaluated the completeness of solid SN data reported to the CIBMTR from 1991 to 2018 to understand the implications of using CIBMTR data alone or combined with CCR data to quantify the burden of solid SNs after HCT.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe assessed the feasibility to estimate illness burden in adults with SCD, investigated factors associated with health-related quality of life (HRQoL), and estimated societal burden. We recruited 32 participants and collected data on fatigue, HRQoL, and work productivity and activity impairment via patient survey. Health care utilization was abstracted for the 12 months before enrollment using medical chart review.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Our institution simultaneously transitioned all postgraduate specialty training programs to competency-based medical education (CBME) curricula. We explored experiences of CBME-trained residents graduating from five-year programs to inform the continued evolution of CBME in Canada.
Methods: We utilized qualitative description to explore residents' experiences and inform continued CBME improvement.
Background: Although breast cancer survivors are at risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD) from treatment late effects, evidence to inform long-term and age-specific cardiovascular surveillance recommendations is lacking.
Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of 10 211 women diagnosed with first primary unilateral breast cancer in Kaiser Permanente Washington or Colorado (aged 20 years and older, survived ≥1 year). We estimated multivariable adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) for associations between initial chemotherapy regimen type (anthracycline and/or trastuzumab, other chemotherapies, no chemotherapy [referent]) and CVD risk, adjusted for patient characteristics, other treatments, and CVD risk factors.
Background: Population-based survival studies of adult acute myeloid leukemia (AML) have not simultaneously evaluated age at diagnosis, race and ethnicity, sex, calendar period or AML subtypes/subgroups among chemotherapy-treated patients.
Methods: For 28,473 chemotherapy-treated AML patients diagnosed at ages ≥20 years in population-based cancer registry areas of the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program (2001-2018, followed through 2019), we evaluated 1-month through 5-year relative survival (RS) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) using the actuarial method in the SEER∗Stat Survival Session and overall survival (OS) using multivariable Cox regression to estimate proportional hazard ratios (HR) and 95% CI.
Findings: RS decreased with increasing age (20-39, 40-59, 60-74, 75-84, ≥85 years) at AML diagnosis.
Background: The program evaluation standards (PES) can be considered established criteria for high-quality evaluations. We emphasize PES Utility standards and evaluation capacity building as we strive for meaningful application of our work in the real world.
Purpose: We focused our methodology on understanding how stakeholders discussed utility and how their perceptions related to our evaluation work aligned with the Utility domain of the program evaluation standards.
Introduction: The Patient Reported Outcomes, Burdens, and Experiences (PROBE) questionnaire is a patient-reported outcome tool that assesses quality of life and disease burden in people with haemophilia (PWH).
Aim: To assesses the test-retest reliability of PROBE when completed using the mobile phone application.
Methods: We recruited PWH, including carriers, and individuals with no bleeding disorders who attended haemophilia-related workshops or via social media.
Physical inactivity is a global health problem. Childhood is an opportune time to establish healthy physical activity behaviors, including the participation in organized physical activity, such as sports. We hypothesize that financial incentives can improve young people's participation in physical activity and sports.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Sleep, sedentary behavior, and physical activity have fundamental impacts on health and well-being. Little is known about how these behaviors vary across the year.
Purpose: To investigate how movement-related behaviors change across days of the week and seasons, and describe movement patterns across a full year and around specific temporal events.
Purpose: Competency-based medical education relies on a strong program of assessment, and quality comments play a vital role in ensuring its success. The goal of this study is to determine the effect of the timeliness of assessment completion on the quality of the feedback.
Materials And Methods: Using the Quality of Assessment for Learning (QuAL) score 2478 assessments were evaluated.
The invasive hornet Vespa velutina nigrithorax is considered a proliferating threat to pollinators in Europe and Asia. While the impact of this species on managed honey bees is well-documented, effects upon other pollinator populations remain poorly understood. Nonetheless, dietary analyses indicate that the hornets consume a diversity of prey, fuelling concerns for at-risk taxa.
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