• Title/Summary/Keyword: Mixed Methods Research

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Expression of ssrA in non-pathogen-induced adaptation in the oral cavity through signal exchange with oral pathogens

  • Kim, Sung-Ryoul;Kwak, Jae-Woo;Lee, Sung-Ka;Jung, Seung-Gon;Han, Man-Seung;Kim, Bang-Sin;Kook, Min-Suk;Oh, Hee-Kyun;Park, Hong-Ju
    • Journal of the Korean Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons
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    • v.38 no.1
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    • pp.14-19
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    • 2012
  • Introduction: This study was conducted to evaluate ssrA expression resulting from adaptation of Escherichia coli (E. coli) to oral pathogens through signal exchange. Materials and Methods: Human cell lines Hep2 and HT29, wild-type E. coli (WT K-12), ssrA knock-out E. coli (${\Delta}K$-12), and Scleropages aureus (S. aureus) were used. A single culture consisting of Hep2, HT29, WT K-12, and ${\Delta}K$-12, and mixed cultures consisting of Hep2 and WT K-12, Hep2 and ${\Delta}K$-12, WT K-12 and S. aureus, ${\Delta}K$-12 and S. aureus, and Hep2, WT K-12, and S. aureus were prepared. For HT29, a mixed culture was prepared with WT K-12 and with WT K-12 and S. aureus. Total RNA was extracted from each culture with the resulting expression of ssrA, nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells (NF-${\kappa}B$), and p53 was evaluated by Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Results: The expression of ssrA in a single culture of WT K-12 was lower than that observed in the mixed culture of WT K-12 with S. aureus. Greater ssrA expression was observed in the mixed culture of WT K-12 with Hep2 than in the single culture of WT K-12. The expression of NF-${\kappa}B$ was higher in the mixed culture of Hep2 with ${\Delta}K$-12 than that in the mixed culture of Hep2 with WT K-12, and was lowest in the single culture of Hep2. The expression of ssrA was higher in the mixed culture of WT K-12 with Hep2 and S. aureus than in the mixed culture of WT K-12 with Hep2. Conclusion: These results suggest that ssrA plays an important role in the mechanism of E. coli adaptation to a new environment.

Working Experience of the Community-based Long-term Care Hospital Workers during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Mixed Methods Research (코로나19 대유행 시 지역사회 요양병원 종사자의 근무경험: 혼합연구방법)

  • Jang, Hyun Jung;Park, Jeong Eon
    • Journal of Korean Academy of Rural Health Nursing
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    • v.18 no.1
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    • pp.27-39
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    • 2023
  • Purpose: This study is a mixed methods research that was conducted to verify factors affecting the working experience of community-based long-term care hospital workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: The study was carried out from July 19 to November 3, 2021 for 340 nurses who worked at 10 long-term care hospitals located in G city. Results: As the study results, factors that affected job stress of the workers working at community-based long-term care hospitals included job satisfaction (β=-.27, p<.001), work demand (β=-.25, p<.001), fatigue (β=.19, p=.001), and cooperation and leadership (β=-.12, p=.049). It was found that the participants were struggling with physical and mental stress caused by the increased workload due to the preventative measures taken to stop the infection and spread of COVID-19. Despite this, they accepted their situation as necessary to overcome the pandemic and shared the quarantine guidelines of the government and community health centers while actively responding to prevent the spread of COVID-19 under the leadership of their supervisors. However, they were experiencing psychological and emotional burnout in the prolonged pandemic situation. Conclusion: It is considered necessary to help relieve their stress and provide psychological and mental support by adopting a policy to develop and apply comprehensive programs.

The Interactive Effect of Level of Education and Environmental Concern toward Organic Food in Vietnam

  • HOANG, Hung Cuong;CHOVANCOVA, Miloslava;HOANG, Thi Que Huong
    • Journal of Distribution Science
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    • v.18 no.9
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    • pp.19-30
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    • 2020
  • Purpose: As an environmental concern increases, customers pay more attention to purchase organic food. While customers' purchase intention of organic food has been widely studied, there are lacks of researches regarding the moderation effect of environmental concern and the interactive effect of level of education based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). This study examines the influence of level of education and environmental concern on purchase intention based on the Theory of Planned Behavior and organic food in Vietnam. Research design, data and methodology: The methodology of mixed methods of qualitative and quantitative is applied with a survey of 420 customers being conducted to collect data from three biggest cities in Vietnam: Ho Chi Minh, DaNang and Hanoi. SPSS 23 and SMART-PLS 3.2 are used for data analysis. Results: The result shows that the customers have more environmental concern which increases their attitude to the intention of purchasing organic food. Moreover, there has not the three-way interactive effect of level of education, environmental concern and attitude on purchase intention toward organic food. Conclusions: This enriches the existing literature with the moderation of environmental concern to the relationship between attitude and purchase intention toward organic food in Vietnam based on the Theory of Planned Behavior.

Barriers to Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening in Singapore: a Mixed Methods Analysis

  • Malhotra, Chetna;Bilger, Marcel;Liu, Joy;Finkelstein, Eric
    • Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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    • v.17 no.8
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    • pp.3887-3895
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    • 2016
  • Background: In order to increase breast and cervical cancer screening uptake in Singapore, women's perceived barriers to screening need to be identified and overcome. Using data from both focus groups and surveys, we aimed to assess perceived barriers and motivations for breast and cervical cancer screening. Materials and Methods: We conducted 8 focus groups with 64 women, using thematic analysis to identify overarching themes related to women's attitudes towards screening. Based on recurring themes from focus groups, several hypotheses regarding potential barriers and motivations to screen were generated and tested through a national survey of 801 women aged 25-64. Results: Focus group participants had misconceptions related to screening, believing that the procedures were painful. Cost was an issue, as well as efficacy and fatalism. Conclusions: By identifying barriers to and motivators for screening through a mixed-method design that has both nuance and external validity, this study offers valuable suggestions to policymakers to improve breast and cervical cancer screening uptake in Singapore.

Health-promoting Lifestyle of Nursing Students: Using Mixed Methods Research (간호대학생의 건강증진 생활양식: 혼합연구설계)

  • Lee, Hyun-Ju
    • Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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    • v.30 no.4
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    • pp.414-425
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    • 2019
  • Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of psychosocial wellbeing status and self efficacy on health-promoting behavior of nursing students, and to explore the experiences related to health-promoting behavior. Methods: For this study, an explanatory sequential mixed method design approach was used with survey data collected from 148 nursing students. In addition, qualitative data for exploration of health-promoting behavior experience were collected from three focus-group interviews of 17 participants. Quantitative data were analyzed with SPSS/WIN 25.0 and qualitative data were analyzed by making contents analysis with Nvivo 12.0. Results: The results showed that psychosocial wellbeing status, self efficacy, grade, and regularity meal explained 43.0% of the variance in health-promoting behavior. And seven themes from the collected significant statements about experience of health-promoting behavior included the daily life going on without delay; changes in body which is felt; recognizing the necessity of health care; making efforts to increase physical activities; revising eating habit; looking for the way to relieve stress; and attempting to divert my thoughts. Conclusion: Based on the results of this study, it is necessary to develop and verify health program in order to improve nursing students' health-promoting behavior. And university authorities and government should make an effort to improve nursing students' health-promoting behavior.

Prevalence and Predictors of Exclusive Breastfeeding in Late Preterm Infants at 12 Weeks

  • Lee, Soo Yeon;Jang, Gun Ja
    • Child Health Nursing Research
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    • v.22 no.2
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    • pp.79-86
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    • 2016
  • Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify breastfeeding practice with late preterm infants (LPIs), and to determine predictors of exclusive breastfeeding at the 12th week after discharge. Methods: The participants were 106 mothers of LPIs hospitalized in neonatal intensive care units at two university hospitals. Data were collected between February and October, 2013. Questionnaires included characteristics of LPIs, their mothers, and feeding-related characteristics. Feeding methods were exclusive breastfeeding, mixed feeding, and formula feeding. Results: Exclusive breastfeeding steadily increased from 5.7% at the 1st week to 19.8% at the 12th week, as did formula feeding from 27.3% to 67.9%. Contrarily, mixed feeding decreased from 67.0% at the 1st week to 12.3% at the 12th week. The ratio of formula feeding was higher than that of exclusive breastfeeding over time. Predictors for exclusive breastfeeding were the following: type of delivery (OR=2.96, 95%CI=1.07-8.14), feeding intolerance (OR=3.03, 95%CI=1.26-7.25) and feeding method during hospitalization (OR=7.84, 95%CI=3.15-19.53). Conclusion: In order to increase breastfeeding opportunities for LPIs, educational programs for gestational age-appropriate breastfeeding should be developed. The focus of breastfeeding education needs to be on mothers who delivered their LPIs through Cesarean-section and LPIs who had feeding intolerance or were fed only formula during hospitalization.

Factors Influencing the Preventive Behaviors of COVID-19 by Health Care Workers: A Mixed Methods Study (보건의료인의 코로나19에 대한 예방행위 영향 요인: 혼합연구방법)

  • Lee, Ji Hye; Han, Suk Jung
    • Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
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    • v.36 no.3
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    • pp.347-360
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    • 2022
  • Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify the risk perception, safety climate and preventive behaviors of COVID-19 infections, and to verify the factors influencing the adoption of preventive behaviors by health care workers. Methods: A mixed-method approach was used based on a survey carried out in a general hospital. Quantitative data (N=181) were collected through a questionnaire and analyzed using multiple regression. Qualitative data (N=8) were collected through individual interviews and analyzed through Colaizzi's phenomological research method. Results: The factors influencing adoption of preventive behaviors by health care workers were safety climate (β=.41, p<.001), education (β=-.20, p=.025), work unit (β=-.16, p=.032), and risk perception (β=.15, p=.020). The explanatory power was 28.3%, and they have shown that these health care workers felt 'the threat of a pandemic like a battlefield', experienced 'struggle with quarantine rules' and realized 'the reality of infection control and the reorganization for change'. Conclusion: The findings of this study indicate that to increase the adoption of infection control preventive behaviors by health care workers when faced with new infectious diseases in the future, it is necessary to establish organizational support and a safe climate. This study confirms the need for preemptive support and education.

Statistical Method of Ranking Candidate Genes for the Biomarker

  • Kim, Byung-Soo;Kim, In-Young;Lee, Sun-Ho;Rha, Sun-Young
    • Communications for Statistical Applications and Methods
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    • v.14 no.1
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    • pp.169-182
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    • 2007
  • Receive operating characteristic (ROC) approach can be employed to rank candidate genes from a microarray experiment, in particular, for the biomarker development with the purpose of population screening of a cancer. In the cancer microarray experiment based on n patients the researcher often wants to compare the tumor tissue with the normal tissue within the same individual using a common reference RNA. Ideally, this experiment produces n pairs of microarray data. However, it is often the case that there are missing values either in the normal or tumor tissue data. Practically, we have $n_1$ pairs of complete observations, $n_2$ "normal only" and $n_3$ "tumor only" data for the microarray. We refer to this data set as a mixed data set. We develop a ROC approach on the mixed data set to rank candidate genes for the biomarker development for the colorectal cancer screening. It turns out that the correlation between two ranks in terms of ROC and t statistics based on the top 50 genes of ROC rank is less than 0.6. This result indicates that employing a right approach of ranking candidate genes for the biomarker development is important for the allocation of resources.

Mixed Reality System for Virtual Chemistry Lab

  • Duan, Xiaoyun;Kang, Shin-Jin;Choi, Jong In;Kim, Soo Kyun
    • KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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    • v.14 no.4
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    • pp.1673-1688
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    • 2020
  • This paper presents a new method for improving teaching aids with the design and development of a chemistry education platform - the Mixed Reality (MR) Chemistry Lab. Our system provides a new educational experience in which students can simulate a chemistry experiment in a virtual lab and interact with objects using Oculus Helmet-Mounted Displays (HMD) and hand controller devices. The proposed system aims to familiarize students with experimental procedures and safety knowledge before conducting actual experiments. Moreover, students will be able to observe microscopic atomic structure models in three dimensions. Our research also includes a five-part, quantitative evaluation system user tests perform using a quantitative questionnaire consisting of five items, including hardware equipment, immersion, education, interaction sense of control, and degree of difficulty. The evaluation results confirm that this system will be helpful to the educational experience of conducting chemistry experiments with scientific evaluation methods, and the proposed system is also expected to have a broad range of applications in many other subjects.

Weighted zero-inflated Poisson mixed model with an application to Medicaid utilization data

  • Lee, Sang Mee;Karrison, Theodore;Nocon, Robert S.;Huang, Elbert
    • Communications for Statistical Applications and Methods
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    • v.25 no.2
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    • pp.173-184
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    • 2018
  • In medical or public health research, it is common to encounter clustered or longitudinal count data that exhibit excess zeros. For example, health care utilization data often have a multi-modal distribution with excess zeroes as well as a multilevel structure where patients are nested within physicians and hospitals. To analyze this type of data, zero-inflated count models with mixed effects have been developed where a count response variable is assumed to be distributed as a mixture of a Poisson or negative binomial and a distribution with a point mass of zeros that include random effects. However, no study has considered a situation where data are also censored due to the finite nature of the observation period or follow-up. In this paper, we present a weighted version of zero-inflated Poisson model with random effects accounting for variable individual follow-up times. We suggested two different types of weight function. The performance of the proposed model is evaluated and compared to a standard zero-inflated mixed model through simulation studies. This approach is then applied to Medicaid data analysis.