V. All rights reserved.”
“ObjectiveThis study examined the short-term and long-term AZD1390 effects of using a screening instrument on psychological distress and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) among cancer patients receiving radiotherapy. In addition, we investigated the effect of early psychosocial treatment on patients’ overall health-related outcomes as previous research showed that patients in the screening condition were referred to a psychosocial caregiver at an earlier stage.
MethodsA cluster randomised controlled trial with a randomisation at the levels of 14 radiotherapists, 568 patients was conducted.
Patients were asked to complete questionnaires at 3 and 12months follow-up.
ResultsMixed models analyses showed no significant intervention effects on patients’ overall extent
of psychosocial distress and HRQoL, both on the short and long terms. Post-hoc analyses revealed significant interactions of the intervention with early referral and improved HRQoL and anxiety, suggesting that earlier referral might influence short-term HRQoL and experienced anxiety in patients.
ConclusionsOur results suggest that the use of a psychosocial screening instrument among patients receiving radiotherapy in itself does not sufficiently improve patients’ health-related outcome. The effective delivery of psychosocial care depends upon several components such as identification of distress and successful implementation of screening procedures. One of the challenges is to get insight in the effects of early referral of cancer patients for psychosocial support because early referral might have a favourable Epigenetic inhibitor effect on some of the patients’ health-related outcomes. Copyright (c) 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.”
“Poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) and copolymers
click here of vinylidene fluoride and trifluoroethylene [P(VDF/TrFE)s] were deposited on silicon substrates, and their structure and properties were comparatively investigated. Compared to P(VDF/TrFE), which is the polymer material currently most dominant for ferroelectric thin-film devices applications, our beta-phase PVDF homopolymer thin film demonstrated several advantages, such as higher dielectric breakdown strength, improved polarization fatigue endurance, and larger ferroelectric polarization at elevated temperatures with improved thermal stability. The reasons for the observed different characteristics between the PVDF and P(VDF/TrFE) thin films were analyzed on the basis of their different structures and morphologies. The results indicate that the low-cost beta-phase PVDF homopolymer thin films have great potential as an alternative to P(VDF/TrFE) for ferroelectric and piezoelectric thin-film-device applications. (C) 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 116: 3331-3337, 2010″
“Nanocomposite thin films of fullerene C-60 containing Ag nanoparticles (NPs) were synthesized by thermal codeposition.