A brain tumor diagnosis is traumatic and has a devastating impact upon the caregiver and the family unit. The effects of the tumor growth and treatment often cause significant neurologic injury and dramatically affect the quality of life (QOL) for the patient and their entire family unit. Caregivers are constantly challenged to provide care, yet they feel untrained and underprepared as they struggle to adjust to new roles and responsibilities. The purpose of this study is to gain an understanding of the lived experiences of caregivers of individuals with primary benign brain tumor (PBBT). An interpretive phenomenological analysis approach was used to explore the experiences of 10 caregivers. Bowen's family systems theory provided an understanding of how families respond to changes in their family system resulting from a member of the family having a PBBT. A nonprobability sampling technique was used to recruit participants from 2 virtual support groups. Data were collected through semistructured interviews guided by an interview template. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed following the Smith tradition of inquiry until data saturation was reached. Three major themes emerged from the data: experiencing new challenges, responding to initial diagnosis, and facing challenges with family and friends. Caregivers experience a wide variety of responsibilities that are physically and psychologically challenging, which can negatively affect the QOL for the caregiver and the patient. These findings can be used by healthcare providers to identify resources to alleviate the unanticipated demands caregivers experience. Future studies are needed to explore how best to decrease challenges experienced by caregivers of individuals with PBBT.

This study discusses main risk factors of ovarian tumor to determine a tumor type. Since symptoms of ovarian tumor are not obvious as the tumors are located in pelvic, the ovarian tumor is difficult to detect. The symptoms are mostly stomach or lower abdomen swellings, which are often ignored. The probability of ovarian cancer is lower than cervical cancer, but the mortality rate is the highest of all gynecologic diseases. The study uses statistical methods to analyze risk factors of patients to determine the tumor type and an early treatment in order to reduce the death rate. The sources of the studies are from Kaohsiung Veterans General Hospital and are classified according to different cases of tumors based on ultrasound checks and other relevant risk factors, such as ages and tumor marks so as to provide a determined method to distinguish among benign, borderline and malignant ovarian tumors in order to create appropriate classification criteria for followups, surgeries, and references for tracking. To differentiate between malignant and nonmalignant (benign and borderline) cases, we use risk factors to construct classification and regression trees so as to help physicians to determine the tumor type. In the situation in which the non-malignant tumor may be determined, we use logistic regression model according to the degree of influence of risk factors to further classify between benign and borderline tumors. The aforementioned process can determine tumor types precisely and can also determine surgery types so as to help determining whether patients would need a follow-up.

In recent years, domestic medicine companies limited by total value pay system can be regarded as depressing business. While some of medicine companies have been gradually losing their advantages, they, in addition to moving the production base to other countries, hope to find the suitable management system which completely subvert the way of thinking and traditional management skills as well for the purpose of improving the performance and competitiveness of company. Balanced Score Card (BSC) was proposed in 1990 by Kaplan & Norton. This set of management systems is to establish company's vision and mission. According to the survey, BSC has already been introduced by a lot of listed companies or non-listed companies to enhance the business performance. Therefore, we can know that BSC has deeply influenced the operation of Taiwan's companies of. BSC breaks through the traditional limitation to measure the performance in financial views , constructs four major aspects to inspect operation of companies in terms of financials, customers, business internal process and organization learning to grow, and gives consideration to balance between financial performance and non financial performance, balance between long-term goal and short-term goal, balance between internal and external of company, linkage between performance measurement and operation objective, improving management performance measurement system. Application of BSC would convert the organization vision into concrete goal, link the goal with cause-effect relationship, guide the behavior of staff and organization by the performance measurement and incentives, and combine personal goal with company goal. High ranking managers can not only easily communicate with staffs, but also trace back the effectiveness of company operation. However, It is still unable to find out whether the domestic medicine companies selling benign prostatic hyperplasia drugs could use BSC to improve its company performances or not. So, this research selects domestic medicine companies selling benign prostatic hyperplasia drugs as research object and investigates the effect of four major aspects such as financials, customers, business internal process and organization learning to grow, and influences of BSC on company's performance. Also, through qusetionaires and surveys, it would help domestic medicine companies selling benign prostatic hyperplasia drugs to set up the effective BSC system to raise company performance. The result of study can be offered to domestic medicine companies selling benign prostatic hyperplasia drugs as reference in the future.

No description available.

Excess water production is a major economic and environmental problem for the oil and gas industry. The cost of processing excess water runs into billions of dollars. Polymer gel technology has been successfully used in controlling water influx without damaging hydrocarbon production in conventional naturally fractured or hydraulically fractured reservoirs. However, there has been no systematic investigation on effectiveness and placement conditions of polymer gels for shutting off water flow from fractures with narrow apertures in shale and tight gas reservoirs. The existing polymer gels, like those based on Chromium(III) Acetate, as a crosslinker will exert very high extrusion pressure to effectively penetrate the narrow aperture fractures present in shale and tight gas reservoirs. This gives rise to a need for a new polymer gel system that can be used for selectively shutting off water flow from narrow aperture fractures in shale and tight gas reservoirs. The new gel system will have a longer gelation time than the existing polymer gels; this ensures minimum crosslinking of the gel by the time it reaches bottom hole. The gelant solution will be pumped at low pressure so that, it penetrates only pre-existing fractures in the formation with ease. This study for the first time focuses on developing an environmentally benign polymer gel system based on high molecular weight HPAM, as a base polymer and a commercial grade PEI as an organic crosslinker. Gel samples of different concentration ratios of the polymer and crosslinker were prepared and classified under Sydansk code of gel strength to find optimum concentration ratios that gave good gels. The gel system was characterized using Brookfield DV-III Ultra Rheometer and Fann-35 Viscometer.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 1999. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vi, 125 p. : ill. Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 107-122).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Michigan State University. Dept. of Anthropology, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on July 7, 2009) Includes bibliographical references (p. 127-135). Also issued in print.

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2000. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains ix, 154 p. : ill. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 137-143).

Resumo: O câncer de ovário apresenta diagnóstico tardio e alta letalidade, devido à falta de biomarcadores sensíveis e específicos e à rápida progressão desse câncer, assintomático em estadios iniciais. As células imunes têm a capacidade de eliminar as células malignas e regular a progressão tumoral. Contudo, as células imunes do microambiente tumoral são disfuncionais e falham no controle da expansão tumoral podendo, inclusive, promover o crescimento da neoplasia. Apesar das inúmeras tentativas de se correlacionar o grau e o tipo de infiltrado celular com o prognóstico ou sobrevida do paciente com câncer de ovário, não há consenso sobre o real significado do infiltrado leucocitário nesses casos. Desse modo, este estudo tem como objetivo a ampliação dos conhecimentos relativos à imunidade inata em mulheres com câncer de ovário, através caracterização dos aspectos fenotípicos celulares da imunidade inata sérica. Trata-se de estudo transversal onde foram avaliadas 36 mulheres submetidas a exame clínico, ginecológico, ultrassonografia transvaginal e tratamento com laparotomia nos casos indicados de massa pélvica. De acordo com o resultado desses exames, as mulheres selecionadas foram agrupadas nos grupos: controle- ausência de neoplasia, com neoplasia ovariana benigna e neoplasia ovariana maligna. Realizou-se dosagem sérica de moléculas de expressão de superfície de células da resposta imune inata com análise através da citometria de fluxo. As diferenças entre os grupos foram avaliadas pelo teste de Mann-Whitney (dois grupos) ou Kruskal-Walis (três grupos) conforme indicados. As diferenças com valor de p<0,05 foram consideradas significativas. Foram selecionadas 36 pacientes: 10 mulheres no grupo controle, 9 no grupo de neoplasia ovariana benigna e 17 no grupo de neoplasia maligna. Mais de 70% das pacientes com câncer de ovário apresentavam-se com doença... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: Introduction: Ovarian cancer presents late diagnosis and high mortality due to lack of sensitive and specific biomarkers and the rapid progression of this cancer, asymptomatic in early stages. Immune cells have the ability to eliminate malignant cells and regulate tumor progression. However, the immune cells of the tumor microenvironment are dysfunctional and fail to control the tumor growth and may even promote the growth of cancer. Despite numerous attempts to correlate the degree and type of cellular infiltrate and the prognosis or survival of patients with ovarian cancer, there is no consensus about the real meaning of the leukocyte infiltrate in these cases. Thus, this study aims to increase knowledge about the innate immunity in women with ovarian cancer through characterization of phenotypic cellular aspects of innate immunity levels. Methods: This is a Cross-sectional study evaluated 36 women who underwent clinical examination, gynecological examination, transvaginal ultrasound and treatment with laparotomy as indicated pelvic mass. According to the results of these tests, the women selected were grouped into two groups: control, absence of malignancy, with benign ovarian neoplasm and malignant ovarian neoplasm. The serum levels of serum molecules surface expression of cells of the innate immune response with analysis by flow cytometry. Differences between groups were evaluated by the Mann-Whitney (two groups) or Kruskal-Wallis (three groups) as indicated. Differences with p <0.05 were considered significant. Results: We selected 36 patients: 10 women in the control group, 9 in the group of benign ovarian neoplasm and 17 in the group of malignancy. More than 70% of patients with ovarian cancer presented with advanced disease and values of CA125 much changed. For the analysis found, there was a change between the groups for molecules expression in neutrophils... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Orientador: Agnaldo Lopes da Silva Filho / Coorientador: Andréa Teixeira de Carvalho / Banca: Paulo Traiman / Banca: Luciana Maria da Silva / Mestre

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:29:51Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2010-02-26Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T18:59:45Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 paula_soc_me_botfm.pdf: 316334 bytes, checksum: 6b85b467e2fa0ecca5eec101c94687cd (MD5) / O câncer de ovário apresenta diagnóstico tardio e alta letalidade, devido à falta de biomarcadores sensíveis e específicos e à rápida progressão desse câncer, assintomático em estadios iniciais. As células imunes têm a capacidade de eliminar as células malignas e regular a progressão tumoral. Contudo, as células imunes do microambiente tumoral são disfuncionais e falham no controle da expansão tumoral podendo, inclusive, promover o crescimento da neoplasia. Apesar das inúmeras tentativas de se correlacionar o grau e o tipo de infiltrado celular com o prognóstico ou sobrevida do paciente com câncer de ovário, não há consenso sobre o real significado do infiltrado leucocitário nesses casos. Desse modo, este estudo tem como objetivo a ampliação dos conhecimentos relativos à imunidade inata em mulheres com câncer de ovário, através caracterização dos aspectos fenotípicos celulares da imunidade inata sérica. Trata-se de estudo transversal onde foram avaliadas 36 mulheres submetidas a exame clínico, ginecológico, ultrassonografia transvaginal e tratamento com laparotomia nos casos indicados de massa pélvica. De acordo com o resultado desses exames, as mulheres selecionadas foram agrupadas nos grupos: controle- ausência de neoplasia, com neoplasia ovariana benigna e neoplasia ovariana maligna. Realizou-se dosagem sérica de moléculas de expressão de superfície de células da resposta imune inata com análise através da citometria de fluxo. As diferenças entre os grupos foram avaliadas pelo teste de Mann-Whitney (dois grupos) ou Kruskal-Walis (três grupos) conforme indicados. As diferenças com valor de p<0,05 foram consideradas significativas. Foram selecionadas 36 pacientes: 10 mulheres no grupo controle, 9 no grupo de neoplasia ovariana benigna e 17 no grupo de neoplasia maligna. Mais de 70% das pacientes com câncer de ovário apresentavam-se com doença... / Introduction: Ovarian cancer presents late diagnosis and high mortality due to lack of sensitive and specific biomarkers and the rapid progression of this cancer, asymptomatic in early stages. Immune cells have the ability to eliminate malignant cells and regulate tumor progression. However, the immune cells of the tumor microenvironment are dysfunctional and fail to control the tumor growth and may even promote the growth of cancer. Despite numerous attempts to correlate the degree and type of cellular infiltrate and the prognosis or survival of patients with ovarian cancer, there is no consensus about the real meaning of the leukocyte infiltrate in these cases. Thus, this study aims to increase knowledge about the innate immunity in women with ovarian cancer through characterization of phenotypic cellular aspects of innate immunity levels. Methods: This is a Cross-sectional study evaluated 36 women who underwent clinical examination, gynecological examination, transvaginal ultrasound and treatment with laparotomy as indicated pelvic mass. According to the results of these tests, the women selected were grouped into two groups: control, absence of malignancy, with benign ovarian neoplasm and malignant ovarian neoplasm. The serum levels of serum molecules surface expression of cells of the innate immune response with analysis by flow cytometry. Differences between groups were evaluated by the Mann-Whitney (two groups) or Kruskal-Wallis (three groups) as indicated. Differences with p <0.05 were considered significant. Results: We selected 36 patients: 10 women in the control group, 9 in the group of benign ovarian neoplasm and 17 in the group of malignancy. More than 70% of patients with ovarian cancer presented with advanced disease and values of CA125 much changed. For the analysis found, there was a change between the groups for molecules expression in neutrophils... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)