Pancreatic cancer is a malignant tumor with the worst prognosis among all cancers. At the time of diagnosis, surgical cure is no longer a feasible option for most patients, thus early detection of pancreatic cancer is crucial for its treatment. Metabolomics is a powerful new analytical approach to detect the metabolome of cells, tissue, or biofluids. Here, we report the application of (1)H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) combined with principal components analysis to discriminate pancreatic cancer patients from healthy controls based on metabolomic profiling of the serum. The metabolic analysis revealed significant lower of 3-hydroxybutyrate, 3-hydroxyisovalerate, lactate, and trimethylamine-N-oxide as well as significant higher level of isoleucine, triglyceride, leucine, and creatinine in the serum from pancreatic cancer patients compared to that of healthy controls. Our data demonstrate that the subtle differences in metabolite profiles in serum of pancreatic cancer patients and that of healthy subjects as a result of physiological and pathological variations could be identified by NMR-based metabolomics and exploited as metabolic markers for the early detection of pancreatic cancer.

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to explore and analyse the risks in container shipping operations from a logistics perspective. In the paper, risks associated with the three flows in logistics − information, physical, and payment flow are identified and analysed. Design/methodology/approach - The use of case study method was first explained and justified. Second, risk identification was started with supporting references, several interviews were then conducted to identify and validate the potential risks in container shipping operations. A questionnaire was deployed to collect related data; and the impacts of the risks were then assessed and ranked using the method of risk mapping. Findings - The paper has identified a total of 35 risk factors and classified them into different categories. The paper has also revealed that the risks associated with physical flows have more serious risk impacts than the other types of risks; however, one of the risk factors associated with information flow (shippers hiding cargo information) is the most significant one among all the factors. Originality/value - Although many studies have been conducted on container shipping operational risks, no studies so far have approached this issue from a perspective that inclusively examines all the possible risks and comprehensively evaluates the relative importance of each of them. This study has identified the risks in container shipping operations, and analysed and ranked the level of these risks. The research further “refines” the findings of some previous studies by placing the risk factors addressed therein in a full “risk picture” which was developed systematically

Objectives One of the challenges facing hearing care providers when recommending hearing aids is the choice of device technology level. Major manufacturers market families of hearing aids that are described as spanning the range from basic technology to premium technology. Premium technology hearing aids include acoustical processing capabilities (features) that are not found in basic technology instruments. These premium features are intended to yield improved hearing in daily life compared to basic-feature devices. However, independent research that establishes the incremental effectiveness of premium-feature devices compared to basic-feature devices is lacking. This research was designed to explore reported differences in hearing abilities for adults using premium-feature and basic-feature hearing aids in their daily lives. Design This was a single-blinded, repeated, crossover trial in which the participants were blinded. All procedures were carefully controlled to limit researcher bias. Forty-five participants used carefully fitted bilateral hearing aids for one month and then provided data to describe the hearing improvements or deficiencies noted in daily life. Typical participants were 70 years old with mild to moderate adult-onset hearing loss bilaterally. Each participant used 4 pairs of hearing aids: premium- and basic-feature devices from brands marketed by each of two major manufacturers. Participants were blinded about the devices they used and about the research questions. Results All of the outcomes were designed to capture the participant’s point of view about the benefits of the hearing aids. Three types of data were collected: change in hearing-related quality of life, extent of agreement with six positively worded statements about everyday hearing with the hearing aids, and reported preferences between the premium- and basic-feature devices from each brand as well as across all four research hearing aids combined. None of these measures yielded a statistically significant difference in outcomes between premium- and basic-feature devices. Participants did not report better outcomes with premium processing with any measure. Conclusions It could reasonably be asserted that the patient’s perspective is the gold standard for hearing aid effectiveness. While the acoustical processing provided by premium features can potentially improve scores on tests conducted in contrived conditions in a laboratory, or on specific items in a questionnaire, this does not ensure that the processing will be of noteworthy benefit when the hearing aid is used in the real world challenges faced by the patient. If evidence suggests the patient cannot detect that premium features yield improvements over basic features in daily life, what is the responsibility of the provider in recommending hearing aid technology level? In the current research, there was no evidence to suggest that premium-feature devices yielded better outcomes than basic-feature devices from the patient’s point of view. All of the research hearin...

Purpose To evaluate two measures of listening effort (a self-report measure and a word-recall measure) regarding their suitability for inclusion in a comprehensive audiologic testing protocol. The relationship between the two measures was explored and both measures were examined with regard to validity, sensitivity, and impact on speech intelligibility performance. Method Thirty adults with normal hearing participated. Speech intelligibility performance was evaluated at 4 SNRs using keywords embedded in both high and low-context sentences. Listening effort was evaluated at set intervals throughout the speech intelligibility task. Results Results obtained with the two measures were consistent with expected changes in listening effort. However, data obtained with the self-report method demonstrated greater sensitivity to these changes. The two measures were uncorrelated. Under certain conditions, speech intelligibility performance was more negatively impacted when the word-recall measure was used. Exploration of additional theoretical and practical considerations supported a conclusion that the self-report measure was preferable for measuring listening effort simultaneously with speech intelligibility. Conclusions The results of this study provide a rationale for preferring the self-report measure of listening effort over the word recall measure when testing audiologic outcomes.

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A vegetarian diet has been demonstrated to have a profound influence on human metabolism as well as to aid the prevention of several chronic diseases relative to an omnivorous diet. However, there have been no systematic metabolomic studies on all of the biochemical changes induced in human subjects by long-term vegetarianism. In this study, (1)H NMR spectroscopy in combination with multivariate statistical analysis was applied to explore the variability in the metabolic urinary profiles of healthy populations from four groups: lactovegetarian male (VEGMALE), lactovegetarian female (VEGFEMALE), omnivorous male (OMNMALE), and omnivorous female (OMNFEMALE). Differences in metabolic profiles were examined in relation to diet and gender by principal component analysis (PCA) and spectral integrals. It was found that the most influential low molecular weight metabolites responsible for the differences between the diet groups were N-acetyl glycoprotein (NAG), succinate, citrate, trimethylamine-N-oxide (TMAO), taurine, glycine, hippurate, phenylalanine, methylhistidine and formate, whereas for the differences in gender groups the most discriminatory metabolites were NAG, succinate, creatinine, arginine, TMAO, taurine, hippurate, mannitol, phenylalanine, and methylhistidine. The results from the PCA of all four groups indicated that diet plays a greater role in influencing metabolite differences than gender. As an exploration, this work shows the potential of metabolomics when applied to nutritional and physiological studies, and it will aid further studies.

The relationship between cognitive abilities and performance with short and long release time processing was supported and further elucidated in this research. In addition, release time was seen to be a salient variable in subjective performance with amplification in daily life. Accurate prospective prescription of release time has the potential to make a material contribution to successful amplification provision.

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