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• The scale of specific supportive care needs for patients with radical cystectomy was constructed for the first time. • The scale has good reliability and validity, and the confirmatory factor analysis model fits well. • This scale can evaluate comprehensively the supportive care needs of patients postoperative radical cystectomy, and has good practicability. To develop a specific supportive care needs scale for patients who have undergone radical cystectomy, and to assess its reliability and validity. The clinical test version of the scale was developed based on literature review, qualitative interviews, Delphi method, and a pretest. The reliability and validity of the scale were assessed in a cohort of 603 patients who had undergone radical cystectomy at 5 Grade A hospitals in Chongqing, China. The final scale included 26 items across the following 7 dimensions: health information needs, social needs, family support needs, physiological needs, sexual needs, daily activities needs, and psychological needs. The content validity index was 0.991 and the content validity indices of each item ranged from 0.889 to 1.00. Seven factors were extracted by exploratory factor analysis and the cumulative contribution of variance accounted for 70.762%. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed a good fit of the model (X2/df = 1.595, GFI = 0.904, IFI = 0.943, TLI = 0.932, CFI = 0.942, RMSEA = 0.044, and RMR = 0.026). The Cronbach's ɑ coefficient and retest reliability were 0.807 and 0.810, respectively. The specific supportive care needs scale for radical cystectomy patients developed in this study showed the good reliability and validity. The tool can be invaluable for comprehensive assessment of the specific supportive care needs of these patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policymakers in many developing countries regard upper-secondary technical and vocational education and training (TVET) as a key element in economic growth and poverty reduction. Unfortunately, there is evidence that upper-secondary TVET programs in developing countries experience high rates of dropout. The overall goal of this study is to examine the dropout rates and reasons for dropout among upper-secondary TVET students in China. To meet this goal, we have three specific objectives. First, we seek to produce high-quality estimates of dropout rates among students in upper-secondary TVET schools in one coastal and one inland province of China. Second, we seek to identify which students drop out from upper-secondary TVET. Third, we test whether financial constraints, math and computer achievement, and parental education and migration status correlate with TVET dropout. Drawing on data from a survey of 7414 upper-secondary TVET students in two provinces of China, we find dropout rates of 10.7% across both provinces and as high as 22% in poorer inland areas, suggesting major gaps and disparities in Chinese TVET dropout rates. Furthermore, we find that baseline academic performance and maternal education and migration status are strong correlates for student dropout. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We reported 46 cases of Diffuse Large B-cell lymphoma which abnormally expressed CD5 protein (De Novo CD5-positive DLBCL), which had attracted researcher's attention for a period of time for its poor prognosis. However, there were few studies on its molecular change. In the present article, we summarized the genetic alterations using a lymphopanel detection method by Next Generation Sequencing(NGS). The most frequently mutated genes were MYD88 L265P (20/46, 43.5%), followed by PIMI (19/46, 41.3%), IGLL5 (13/46, 28.3%)and CD79B (11/46, 23.9%). We further investigated the relationship between gene alterations and prognosis using OS(Overall survival) and PFS(Progression-free survival). MYD88 , CREBBP , and ACTB mutation were significantly associated with inferior OS (P = 0.032, 0.000, 0.001), PIMI, CREBBP, ACTB and CXCR4 mutation were significantly associated with inferior PFS (P = 0.016, 0.001, 0.045, 0.024). Meanwhile, we found that De Novo CD5-positive DLBCL had BCL-6 (9/46,19.6%), C-MYC (4/46, 8.7%) and IRF4 (2/19, 10.5%) rearrangement, but without BCL-2 rearrangement, there were no significantly associations with prognosis. In summary, our research explored the gene alterations of De Novo CD5-positive DLBCL in a relatively large scale for the first time, the most common gene mutation was MYD88 L265P which was also a potential prognostic factor, providing a potential therapeutic target for the patients of De Novo CD5-positive DLBCL. • Our research found that the most frequently mutated genes are MYD88 gene used a lymphopanel detection method by NGS in De Novo CD5-positive DLBCL. • MYD88 gene mutation were significantly associated with inferior OS. • For De Novo CD5-positive DLBCL, both immunophenotype and gene alteration are more inclined to Diffuse large B cell lymphoma of ABC (activated B-cell) subtype. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Despite requirements of and support for universal education up to grade 9, there are concerning reports that poor rural areas in China suffer from high and maybe even rising dropout rates. Although aggregated statistics from the Ministry of Education show almost universal compliance with the 9-year compulsory education law, there have been few independent, survey-based studies regarding dropout rates in China. Between 2009 and 2010 we surveyed over 7800 grade 7, 8, and 9 students from 46 randomly selected junior high schools in four counties in two provinces in North and Northwest China to measure the dropout rate. We also used the survey data to examine factors correlated with dropping out, such as the opportunity cost of going to school, household poverty, and poor academic performance. According to the study''s findings, drop out rates between grade 7 and grade 8 reached 5.7% and dropout rates between grade 8 and grade 9 reached 9.0%. In sum, among the total number of students attending junior high school during the first month of the first term of grade 7, 14.2% had left school by the first month of grade 9. Dropout rates were even higher for students that were older, from poorer families (and families in which the parents were not healthy), or were performing more poorly academically. We conclude that although the government''s policy of reducing tuition and fees for junior high students may be necessary, it is not sufficient to solve the dropout problem. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In the late 1990s and early 2000s, China''s Ministry of Education embarked on an ambitious program of primary school mergers by shutting down small village schools and opening up larger centralized schools in towns and county seats. The goal of the program was to improve the teacher and building resources in an attempt to raise the human capital of students in poor rural areas, although it was recognized that students would lose the opportunity to learn in the settings of their own familiar villages. Because of the increased distances to the new centralized schools, the merger program also entailed building boarding facilities and encouraging or mandating that students live at school during the week away from their family. Given the magnitude of the program and the obvious mix of benefits and costs that such a program entails there has been surprisingly little effort to evaluate the impact of creating a new system that transfers students from school to school during their primary school period of education and, in some cases, making student live in boarding facilities at school. In this paper, our overall goal is to examine the impact of the Rural Primary School Merger Program on academic performance of students using a dataset from a survey that we designed to reflect transfer paths and boarding statuses of students. We use OLS and Propensity Score Matching approaches and demonstrate that there is a large “resource effect” (that is, an effect that appears to be associated with the better facilities and higher quality of teachers in the town and county schools) that appears to be associated with the transfers of students from less centralized schools (such as village schools) to more centralized schools. Boarding, however, is shown to have negative impacts on academic performance. However, students who transfer to county school benefit from the transfer no matter where they start and whether they board or not. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• Quantitative survey data show that only 17 percent of students reported one hour daily independent reading in rural China. • Independent reading ability is positively correlated with academic performance in math and Chinese. • Qualitative interview findings suggest that barriers both in the home and at school may explain the low prevalence of independent reading. Independent reading—unassigned reading for personal pleasure—has been shown to be an important driver of reading skills and academic success. Children that commonly read for pleasure exhibit higher academic performance. However, little research has been done on independent reading in rural China, where the education system is charged with schooling tens of millions of students. Many rural students fall behind their urban counterparts in school, with potentially troubling implications for China's ongoing development. This article explores the prevalence of independent reading and its associations with reading ability and academic performance among rural students. Using a mixed methods approach, we analyze quantitative data from a survey of 13,232 students from 134 rural schools and interviews with students, teachers, principals, and caregivers. We find that independent reading is positively and significantly correlated with reading ability as well as standardized math and Chinese tests scores. Despite such correlations, only 17 percent of students report reading for pleasure for an hour a day. Interview findings suggest that inaccessible bookstores, curriculum constraints, unsupportive home environments, low availability of appealing and level-appropriate books, and insufficient school investment in reading resources may explain the low prevalence of independent reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blockchain-based traceability provides unforgeable and tamper-resistant traceability information, thus contributing to a high-quality and safe food supply and alleviating consumers' increasing concerns about food quality and safety. There is scant literature analyzing consumers' valuation of blockchain-based traceability, although it matters for the application and development of this technology. We investigated the consumers' valuation of blockchain-based traceability in the tea industry in China. We conducted a randomized experiment to estimate the effect of the information intervention on consumers' valuation. Using data from 4017 respondents in six Chinese megacities collected from an online survey, we found that consumers valued blockchain-based traceability more than commonly-used quality assurance attributes, including conventional traceability and certification labels, and consumers viewed blockchain-based traceability and certification labels as substitutes. Furthermore, exposure to relevant knowledge increased their valuation of blockchain-based traceability. This was especially true for consumers valuing product quality and safety most and young, highly educated, and high-income consumers. We suggest stakeholders strengthen publicity to help consumers realize the value of blockchain-based traceability technology. • We investigated Chinese tea consumers' valuations on traceability and certification. • Consumers valued blockchain-based traceability much more than conventional traceability and certification. • Blockchain-based traceability and certification were substitutable. • An information intervention increased consumers' premium for blockchain-based traceability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We organized challenges for the digestive system on MICCAI. • We released two well-annotated datasets: cell detection and tissue segmentation. • We report the top-performing methods and results of two challenge tasks. [Display omitted] Examination of pathological images is the golden standard for diagnosing and screening many kinds of cancers. Multiple datasets, benchmarks, and challenges have been released in recent years, resulting in significant improvements in computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) of related diseases. However, few existing works focus on the digestive system. We released two well-annotated benchmark datasets and organized challenges for the digestive-system pathological cell detection and tissue segmentation, in conjunction with the International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention (MICCAI). This paper first introduces the two released datasets, i.e., signet ring cell detection and colonoscopy tissue segmentation, with the descriptions of data collection, annotation, and potential uses. We also report the set-up, evaluation metrics, and top-performing methods and results of two challenge tasks for cell detection and tissue segmentation. In particular, the challenge received 234 effective submissions from 32 participating teams, where top-performing teams developed advancing approaches and tools for the CAD of digestive pathology. To the best of our knowledge, these are the first released publicly available datasets with corresponding challenges for the digestive-system pathological detection and segmentation. The related datasets and results provide new opportunities for the research and application of digestive pathology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With a goal of improving health system quality and efficiency, reforms of China's health system over the past decade have sought to strengthen primary healthcare in lower-level clinics and health centers. Despite these wide-ranging reforms and initiatives, population-based studies have documented dramatic declines in patients' use of primary care facilities during this period. In this paper, we explore the determinants of this trend in China's rural areas using detailed longitudinal data following a nationally-representative sample of rural households and village clinics from 2011 to 2018. We estimate that between 2011 and 2018, the probability that individuals sought care at village clinics when ill dropped by 44%. At the same time, the utilization of outpatient services in county hospitals increased by 56% and patient self-treatment increased by 20%. Detailed Kitagawa-Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions suggest four primary drivers of this trend: the shifting burden of disease in rural areas, changes in how patients choose to seek care given different disease conditions, declining drug inventory in village clinics, and the decreasing importance of remoteness as a determinant of healthcare seeking behavior. Our results highlight the deteriorating role of village clinics in the rural healthcare system and the increasing importance of self-treatment and higher-tier primary care services. • Recent policies in China have sought to strengthen primary care. • Despite this, rural primary care utilization in villages has continued to decline. • Utilization of village clinics has shifted to self-treatment and upper-tier facilities. • Decomposition analysis show four main factors driving this trend. • Results highlight a deteriorating role of village clinics in the health system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is a high profile initiative to narrow the inequality of access to ICT and improve educational performance. However, there is little empirical evidence on its impacts. In order to assess the effectiveness of OLPC, we conducted a randomized experiment of OLPC with Chinese characteristics involving 300 third-grade students in Beijing migrant schools. Our results show that the program improved student computer skills by 0.33 standard deviations and math scores by 0.17 standard deviations. The program also increased student time spent using educational software and decreased student time spent watching TV. Student self-esteem also improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]