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PurposeVirtual grocery shopping (VGS), or online grocery shopping, traditionally has seen slow adoption in Canada; however, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced consumers to seek safer ways to shop. Retailers have invested in building new infrastructure to meet the current consumer demands for VGS. However, the main driver for VGS behaviour has not been yet clearly identified. Additionally, it is also not unknown whether the shopping modalities will continue VGS after the pandemic. This study provides insights into consumer intentions to use VGS by extending the model of goal-directed behaviour (MGB) to incorporate consumer technological readiness.Design/methodology/approachThe study collected 935 valid survey responses from an online survey panel of Canadian consumers. A two-step approach was applied to analyse the data, comprising confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM). The data quality and model fit were tested before testing the proposed relationships among the constructs: attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control, positive and negative anticipated emotions, as well as technological readiness, desire and behaviour intentions. The mediation role of desire between frequency of past online grocery shopping behaviours and the future behavioural intention was also tested using SPSS PROCESS.FindingsThe study results showed that attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control, positive and negative emotions, technological readiness and frequency of past VGS have a major impact on consumers' desire to embrace VGS in the future. Consumer desire also played a significant mediating role between frequency of past VGS behaviours and future shopping intention online. In addition, the frequency of past VGS showed an even stronger impact on behavioural intention among female consumers than among male consumers.Originality/valueThe findings of this study provide an original insight into the social, cultural and psychological factors that impact consumers' use of VGS, particularly the impacts of gender.

Bispecific T-cell engagers (TcEs) are antibody-based immunotherapeutic drugs that specifically direct lymphocyte effector functions against tumors. TcEs have one arm with affinity for an activating immunoreceptor connected through a flexible hinge to a distinct arm with affinity for a tumor antigen to achieve tumor killing by cytotoxic immune cells. Understanding the structure-function relationships between TcE architecture, immunological synapse formation and function could accelerate design of new TcE-based cancer therapies. Here, we engineer and systematically characterize TcE formats with antigen binding antibody fragments or single chain variable fragments linked together incisthrough immunoglobulin G1 hinge or intransacross the antibody constant fragment. The TcEs were tested in CD8+T-cell killing of Her2+breast cancer cells and evaluated by high-content imaging of immunological synapse formation on a supported lipid bilayer (SLB) platform. We find thatcisTcEs perform better than atransTcE for T-cell mediated killing. Quantification of synapse formation dynamics revealed that all threecisTcEs tested, created close contacts of < 16 nm leading to rapid synapse formation and integrin activation. In contrast, thetransTcE formed close contacts averaging ≥ 16 nm and formed synapses more slowly with weaker integrin activation. We conclude that segmental flexibility is important for TcE function, but adding additional degrees of freedom throughtransformats has a cost for killing efficiency that may be explained by failure of close contact formation and integrin activation.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Individuals living with chronic kidney disease (CKD) are at greater risk of sustaining hip fractures compared with the general population. Following acute trauma, CKD patients are susceptible to lengthened hospitalization with their clinical condition exacerbated by frailty, co-morbidities and sarcopaenia. The most useful clinical assessment tools to predict lengthened in-hospital stays in patients with CKD following admission with hip fracture remain unestablished. METHOD Patients with CKD G3b-5 admitted from home to a tertiary centre hospital in North West UK with hip fracture between Jun 2013 and Jun 2020 were evaluated. Lengthened hospitalization is determined by >2 weeks of in-hospital stay in our analysis, given the average length of in-hospital stay is ∼14 days for the CKD population following hip fracture. Clinical assessment tools used in admission assessment for each patient included the Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS), Charlson's Co-morbidity Index (CCI), Chronic Kidney Disease Frailty Index Laboratory Score (CKD FI-LAB), Karnofsky's Performance Status Scale, Sernbo Score, Nottingham Hip Fracture Score, Estimated VO2 Peak, ASA Physical Status Classification System Score and the Abbreviated Mental Test Score. Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve analyses were performed to evaluate the ability of individual clinical assessment tools to predict for >2 weeks of in-hospital stay in patients with CKD admitted following hip fracture. RESULTS A total of 539 patients with CKDG3b-5 were admitted following hip fracture throughout the study period, of which 329 patients had >2 weeks of in-hospital stay. Within the cohort with >2 weeks of in-hospital stay, mean age was 84.4 ± 10.6 years. The female: male ratio was 1.6:1. Of those, 47 patients (14.3%) were on long-term dialysis. For this cohort, 30-day, 6-month and 1-year mortality were 6.7%, 14.9% and 43.2%, respectively. The odds ratio (OR) for 30-day {OR: 1.71, [95% confidence interval (95% CI) 1.04–2.39]; P < .01}, 6-month (OR: 2.06, 95% CI 1.38–2.73; P < .01) and 1-year mortality (OR: 2.62, 95% CI 1.95–3.30; P < .01) was significantly higher in CKD patients with > 2 weeks of in-hospital stay following hip fracture compared with those who were discharged within the first 2 weeks of hospitalization. Area Under the Curve (AUC) values from ROC analyses for individual clinical assessment tools are shown in Table 1. CONCLUSION Frailty and co-morbidity clinical assessment tools (CFS, CCI and CKD FI-LAB) displayed the best predictive ability for lengthened in-hospital stays in patients living with CKD admitted following hip fracture. CKD patients with lengthened in-hospital stays following hip fracture have greater risks of acute in-hospital mortality and mortality over the short- to medium-term following discharge. Research initiatives should continue to evaluate multidisciplinary management strategies for the older CKD population following acute trauma. Reducing the length of hospitalization may improve survival outcomes and alleviate costs and public health burdens in the care of the older CKD population.

Publication in the list of 50 journals endorsed by the Financial Times (i.e., the FT50) has become ‘institutionalized’ as a primary measure of research quality and prestige by business schools and faculty. This study investigated the extent to which this closed publication system is (mis)aligned with societal imperatives, in particular the United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Research methods included both inductive and deductive analysis. Undergraduate and graduate student research assistants, enrolled in business-related programs, read all 4522 articles published by FT50 journals in 2019 and assessed their relevance to explicit and implicit concepts in the SDG framework. Additionally, potential biases that might stifle research innovation in support of the SDGs were explored. Findings included that 90% of articles were found to have no ‘explicit’ relationship to the SDGs, while only 17% were interpreted as having an implicit relationship. SDG-related articles were disproportionately from one journal-the Journal of Business Ethics (48.1%). There was also an over-representation of observed white male primary authors, who used North American (NA) data sets from NA institutions. A logistic regression model determined that the predicted probability of an SDG-related article increased with observed female primary authors, who used non-NA data sets and institutions. The next steps include comparing this methodological approach with machine learning techniques to find a more efficient and robust method for analyzing an article’s SDG content. Business Schools with sustainability as a core value are encouraged to move beyond FT50 publications for assessing research quality, including for tenure and promotion purposes, and place more focus on assessing research relevance and impact.

Background Neoadjuvant chemoradiation with fluoropyrimidine followed by surgery and adjuvant chemotherapy has been the standard treatment of locally advanced stages II and III rectal cancer for many years. There is a high risk for disease recurrence; therefore, optimizing chemoradiation strategies remains an unmet need. Based on a few studies, there is evidence of the synergistic effect of VEGF/PDGFR blockade with radiation. Methods In this phase I, dose-escalation and dose-expansion study, we studied 3 different dose levels of lenvatinib in combination with capecitabine-based chemoradiation for locally advanced rectal cancer. Results A total of 20 patients were enrolled, and 19 were eligible for assessment of efficacy. The combination was well tolerated, with an MTD of 24 mg lenvatinib. The downstaging rate for the cohort and the pCR was 84.2% and 37.8%, respectively. Blood-based protein biomarkers TSP-2, VEGF-R3, and VEGF correlated with NAR score and were also differentially expressed between response categories. The NAR, or neoadjuvant rectal score, encompasses cT clinical tumor stage, pT pathological tumor stage, and pN pathological nodal stage and provides a continuous variable for evaluating clinical trial outcomes. Conclusion The combination of lenvatinib with capecitabine and radiation in locally advanced rectal cancer was found to be safe and tolerable, and potential blood-based biomarkers were identified. Clinical Trial Registration NCT02935309