Health Effects Associated With Electronic Cigarette Use: Automated Mining of Online Forums.

BACKGROUND:Our previous infodemiological study was performed by manually mining health-effect data associated with electronic cigarettes (ECs) from online forums. Manual mining is time consuming and limits the number of posts that can be retrieved. OBJECTIVE:Our goal in this study was to automatically extract and analyze a large number (>41,000) of online forum posts related to the health effects associated with EC use between 2008 and 2015. METHODS:Data were annotated with medical concepts from the Unified Medical Language System using a modified version of the MetaMap tool. Of over 1.4 million posts, 41,216 were used to analyze symptoms (undiagnosed conditions) and disorders (physician-diagnosed terminology) associated with EC use. For each post, sentiment (positive, negative, and neutral) was also assigned. RESULTS:Symptom and disorder data were categorized into 12 organ systems or anatomical regions. Most posts on symptoms and disorders contained negative sentiment, and affected systems were similar across all years. Health effects were reported most often in the neurological, mouth and throat, and respiratory systems. The most frequently reported symptoms and disorders were headache (n=939), coughing (n=852), malaise (n=468), asthma (n=916), dehydration (n=803), and pharyngitis (n=565). In addition, users often reported linked symptoms (eg, coughing and headache). CONCLUSIONS:Online forums are a valuable repository of data that can be used to identify positive and negative health effects associated with EC use. By automating extraction of online information, we obtained more data than in our prior study, identified new symptoms and disorders associated with EC use, determined which systems are most frequently adversely affected, identified specific symptoms and disorders most commonly reported, and tracked health effects over 7 years

MP 2004-09

The behavior of carbon in northern ecosystems and effects related to warming are under study at the School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences, University of Alaska Fairbanks

The Roles of the Environment and Natural Resources in Economic Growth Analysis

The primary aim of this paper is pedagogical. We first present and discuss a “wiring diagram” framework in order to elucidate the general links between economic growth and "natural capital." After developing the general framework, we develop parallel frameworks applicable to several specific sectors of the economy (agriculture, forestry, and manufacturing). Two appendices provide a mathematical formulation of the economy-wide framework and a brief historical review of the role of natural resources and the environment in economic growth theory.economic growth, natural resources, sustainable development

Emission of Climate-Relevant Gases in Organic and Conventional Cropping Systems

In 81 commercial farms in Germany, emissions of the greenhouse gases CO2, CH4 and N2O from crop production have been computed by model-based analyses. The considered influence factors comprise farm structure, mass and energy inputs as well as cultivation methods. A linear correlation was found between energy input and greenhouse gas potential. Due to lower N and energy inputs and also higher C sequestration as a result of humus restoration, the organic farms revealed area-related emissions (785 kg CO2 eq ha-1 a-1) that were 2.75 times lower than the emissions from conventional farms (2165 kg CO2 eq ha-1 a-1)

Crystallographic Distinction between “Contact” and “Separated” Ion Pairs: Structural Effects on Electronic/ESR Spectra of Alkali-Metal Nitrobenzenides

The classic nitrobenzene anion-radical (NB-• or nitrobenzenide) is isolated for the first time as pure crystalline alkali-metal salts. The deliberate use of the supporting ligands 18-crown-6 and [2.2.2]cryptand allows the selective formation of contact ion pairs designated as (crown)M+NB-•, where M+ = K+, Rb+, and Cs+, as well as the separated ion pair K(cryptand)+NB-•both series of which are structurally characterized by precise low-temperature X-ray crystallography, ESR analysis, and UV−vis spectroscopy. The unusually delocalized structure of NB-• in the separated ion pair follows from the drastically shortened N−C bond and marked quinonoidal distortion of the benzenoid ring to signify complete (95%) electronic conjugation with the nitro substituent. On the other hand, the formation of contact ion pairs results in the substantial decrease of electronic conjugation in inverse order with cation size (K+ \u3e Rb+) owing to increased localization of negative charge from partial (NO2) bonding to the alkali-metal cation. Such a loss in electronic conjugation (or reverse charge transfer) may be counterintuitive, but it is in agreement with the distribution of odd-electron spin electron density from the ESR data and with the hypsochromic shift of the characteristic absorption band in the electronic spectra. Most importantly, this crystallographic study underscores the importance of ion-pair structure on the intrinsic property (and thus reactivity) of the component ions - as focused here on the nitrobenzenide anion

Early Prediction of Movie Box Office Success based on Wikipedia Activity Big Data

Use of socially generated "big data" to access information about collective states of the minds in human societies has become a new paradigm in the emerging field of computational social science. A natural application of this would be the prediction of the society's reaction to a new product in the sense of popularity and adoption rate. However, bridging the gap between "real time monitoring" and "early predicting" remains a big challenge. Here we report on an endeavor to build a minimalistic predictive model for the financial success of movies based on collective activity data of online users. We show that the popularity of a movie can be predicted much before its release by measuring and analyzing the activity level of editors and viewers of the corresponding entry to the movie in Wikipedia, the well-known online encyclopedia.Comment: 13 pages, Including Supporting Information, 7 Figures, Download the dataset from: http://wwm.phy.bme.hu/SupplementaryDataS1.zi

Use of Corn Dried Distillers Grains (DDGS) in Feeding of Ruminants

Bioethanol is the product of fermentation of starch contained in renewable resources, such as corn, wheat, rye and rice. Depending on the technology used for its production, dried distillers decoction may exist in different forms: dried distillers grain (DDG); dried distillers grain with solubles (DDGS) and high-protein dried distillers grains (HPDDG), as well as wet distillers grain (WDG), wet distillers grain with solubles (WDGS), and high-protein wet distillers grains HPWDG). Research conducted in recent years has demonstrated the possibilities of corn DDG as feed for livestock due to its high content of valuable protein, high calorific value and bioelements. Distillers grain has been used as feed for beef and dairy cattle, sheep, swine and poultry. In case of ruminants, it is important that distillers grain is foodstuff high in ruminal undegradable protein, with beneficial fibre content that does not cause rumen acidosis. DDGS has positive influence on milk yield and its fat and protein content. Research on rumen fermentation has proven that DDGS positively affecs processes in forestomachs: methanogenesis, ammonia emission and volatile fatty acids profile. Reprocessing of agri-food industry by-products may well be an alternative for traditional methods of feeding animals and utilizing valuable nutrients that they contain