Yang Dong

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of tadalafil monotherapy for lower urinary tract symptoms secondary to benign prostatic hyperplasia (LUTS/BPH). METHODS: A comprehensive search was done to identify randomized controlled trials comparing the efficacy and safety of tadalafil for LUTS/BPH with placebos. Meta-analytical techniques were applied to evaluate the differences in the study results. RESULTS: Eight studies were identified and analyzed. Compared with placebo, tadalafil was associated with significant improvements in the International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS) (mean difference = -2.19, p < 0.00001) and the International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF) score (mean difference = +4.66, p < 0.00001), despite the concomitant presence of erectile dysfunction. Significant differences were also observed in the IPSS irritative and obstructive subscores, IPSS quality of life index and BPH impact index. After pooling four doses (2.5, 5, 10 and 20 mg), tadalafil failed to produce a significant outcome in maximal urinary flow rate (Qmax) (mean difference = +0.26 ml/s, p = 0.14), but 5 mg of tadalafil significantly improved Qmax (mean difference = +0.63 ml/s, p = 0.04). No significant difference was detected in the incidence of serious adverse events (risk ratio = 1.00, p = 1.00) after tadalafil treatment. CONCLUSIONS: Tadalafil showed good efficacy and safety for improving LUTS and erectile dysfunction in men with BPH, and 5 mg of tadalafil significantly improved Qmax.

Waterlogging, an abiotic stress, severely restricts crop yield in various parts of the world. Thus, we conducted a meta-analysis of 2,419 comparisons from 115 studies to comprehensively evaluate the overall change in crop yield induced by waterlogging in the global region. The results suggested that waterlogging obviously decreased crop yield by 32.9% on average, compared with no waterlogging, which was a result of a reduced 1,000-grain weight (13.67%), biomass (28.89%), plant height (10.68%), net photosynthetic rate ( P n , 39.04%), and leaf area index (LAI, 22.89%). The overall effect of a waterlogging regime on crop yield is related to the crop type; the crop yield reduction varied between wheat (25.53%) and cotton (59.95%), with an overall average value of 36.81% under field conditions. In addition, we also found that compared with no waterlogging, waterlogging in the reproductive growth stage (41.90%) caused a greater yield reduction than in the vegetative growth stage (34.75%). Furthermore, decreases in crop yield were observed with an extension in the waterlogging duration; the greatest decreases in crop yield occurred at 15 &amp;lt; D ≤ 28 (53.19 and 55.96%) under field and potted conditions, respectively. Overall, the results of this meta-analysis showed that waterlogging can decrease crop yield and was mainly affected by crop type, growth stage, and experimental duration.

A rich home literacy environment (HLE) fosters students’ academic achievement. However, the link between HLE and children’s reading comprehension is unclear. This study examined the effects of HLE factors on children’s reading comprehension through a meta-analysis of 59 studies conducted between 1998 and 2018. Results of the meta-analysis indicated three main findings. First, the overall positive correlation between HLE and children’s reading comprehension was moderate (z = .32). Second, sampling area, type of home literacy resource and parental involvement styles did not show a significant interaction effect between each HLE factor and children’s reading comprehension. Third, parents’ involvement and literacy expectations of children had a significantly higher correlation with children’s reading comprehension than home literacy resources did. Findings of this study suggest that parental literacy activities involvement and parental literacy expectations contribute more to children's literacy knowledge enhancement.

This study investigated the correlation between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. To address the correlation picture under Chinese logographical scripts, the researchers investigated the potential explanation for the correlation via Reading Stage, Information Gap, Content-based Approach, and Cognition and Creativity Theory approaches. This study undertook a meta-analysis to synthesize 89 independent samples from primary school stage to Master's degree stage. Results showed the correlation picture as an inverted U-shape, supporting the idea that vocabulary knowledge contributed a large proportion of variance on text comprehension and might also support the independent hypothesis of the impact of vocabulary knowledge on reading comprehension. In each education stage, the correlation between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension was independent in that it did not interact with any significant moderators. This study informed that the vocabulary knowledge not only determined text comprehension progress through facial semantic meaning identification but also suggested that the coordinate development of vocabulary knowledge, grammatical knowledge, and inference would be better in complexity comprehension task performance.

This study synthesized the correlation between reading strategy and reading comprehension of four categories based on Weinstein and Mayer's reading strategy model. The current meta-analysis obtained 57 effect sizes that represented 21,548 readers, and all selected materials came from empirical studies published from 1998 to 2019. Results showed that reading strategies in all the four categories had a similar correlation effect size with reading comprehension. The correlation between monitoring strategy and reading comprehension was significantly larger in first language scripts than second language scripts. Affective strategy and elaboration strategy had an independent effect on reading comprehension, which was not significantly moderated by selected moderators. Results suggested that the reading strategies of all the four categories may have a similar contribution to text comprehension activities.