Background and purpose: Adaptive radiotherapy (ART) can compensate for the dosimetric impacts induced by anatomic and geometric variations in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC); Yet, the need for ART can only be assessed during the radiation treatment and the implementation of ART is resource intensive. Therefore, we aimed to determine tumoral biomarkers using pre-treatment MR images for predicting ART eligibility in NPC patients prior to the start of treatment.Methods: Seventy patients with biopsy-proven NPC (Stage II-IVB) in 2015 were enrolled into this retrospective study. Pre-treatment contrast-enhanced T1-w (CET1-w), T2-w MR images were processed and filtered using Laplacian of Gaussian (LoG) filter before radiomic features extraction. A total of 479 radiomics features, including the first-order (n = 90), shape (n = 14), and texture features (n = 375), were initially extracted from Gross-Tumor-Volume of primary tumor (GTVnp) using CET1-w, T2-w MR images. Patients were randomly divided into a training set (n = 51) and testing set (n = 19). The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) logistic regression model was applied for radiomic model construction in training set to select the most predictive features to predict patients who were replanned and assessed in the testing set. A double cross-validation approach of 100 resampled iterations with 3-fold nested cross-validation was employed in LASSO during model construction. The predictive performance of each model was evaluated using the area under the receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC).Results: In the present cohort, 13 of 70 patients (18.6%) underwent ART. Average AUCs in training and testing sets were 0.962 (95%CI: 0.961–0.963) and 0.852 (95%CI: 0.847–0.857) with 8 selected features for CET1-w model; 0.895 (95%CI: 0.893–0.896) and 0.750 (95%CI: 0.745–0.755) with 6 selected features for T2-w model; and 0.984 (95%CI: 0.983–0.984) and 0.930 (95%CI: 0.928–0.933) with 6 selected features for joint T1-T2 model, respectively. In general, the joint T1-T2 model outperformed either CET1-w or T2-w model alone.Conclusions: Our study successfully showed promising capability of MRI-based radiomics features for pre-treatment identification of ART eligibility in NPC patients.
An alternative method of maintaining indoor air quality may be through the biofiltration of air recirculating within the structure rather than the traditional approach of ventilation. This approach is currently being investigated. Prior to its acceptance for dealing with volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and CO2, efforts were made to determine whether the incorporation of this amount of biomass into the indoor space can have an (negative) impact on indoor air quality. A relatively large ecologically complex biofilter composed of a ca. 10 m2 bioscrubber, 30 m2 of plantings and a 3,500 litre aquarium were established in a 160 m2 'airtight' room in a recently constructed office building in downtown Toronto. This space maintained ca. 0.2 air changes per hour (ACH) compared to the 15 to 20 ACH (with a 30% refresh rate) of other spaces in the same building. Air quality parameters of concern were total VOCs (TVOCs), formaldehyde and aerial spore counts. TVOC and formaldehyde levels in the biofilter room were the same or significantly less than other spaces in the building despite a much slower refresh rate. Aerial spore levels were slightly higher than other indoor spaces but were well within reported values for 'healthy' indoor spaces. Levels appeared to be dependent on horticultural management practices within the space. Most genera of fungal spores present were common indoors and the other genera were associated with living or dead plant material or soil. From these results, the incorporation of a large amount of biomass associated with indoor biofilters does not in itself lower indoor air quality.
An attempt is made to assess consumer sentiment in Hong Kong towards marketing by measuring consumer attitudes towards the four components of the marketing mix – product, price, advertising and retailing. The finding, showed that Hong Kong consumers had a slightly favourable attitude towards marketing. Among the four marketing areas, product was most favourably perceived, while price and advertising were negatively rated. Differences were found among demographic variables.
The pressing need to bridge the gap between workplace communicative needs and curriculum development of business English courses has been documented in the literature. Through a questionnaire survey of 215 working adults, this study examines (a) the spoken and written needs of professionals in the local Hong Kong workplace, (b) the challenges they meet, (c) what they perceive as the most difficult spoken and written communication means, and (d) professionals' concerns about the course content to make such courses effective. This article provides insights into what constitutes an effective business English course and facilitates the teaching and learning of business English.
A Write-Once Publish-Everywhere model was used to create and deliver on-line clinical training and education for undergraduate prosthetics and orthotics students. This project consisted of three phases: developing multimedia learning and teaching tools, integrating these tools into the curriculum (combination of e-Leaming and live practical sessions), and evaluating the outcomes. Video-based multimedia contents were captured and integrated with graphic, audio and text into a PowerPoint presentation software format. The web-based content was integrated into the WebCT platform for course management. Questionnaires were used to obtain student feedback on this e-Learning approach. Results were compared within the prosthetics and orthotics (P&O) programme, with other Health Sciences programmes, and overall with the University. P&O student responses were significantly higher than other groups for career relevance and problem solving. Qualitative feedback indicated that students appreciated the easy access, integrated and interactive approach of the text materials, concise PowerPoint presentation, demonstration video and the online case discussion via the WebCT platform. Educators appreciated the ability easily to maintain contents and publish the modules across multiple media without recreating the contents.
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