Place attachment and acceptance of smart city technologies

Recent studies on smart cities have emphasised that smart solution initiatives should take into account citizens’ different needs and concerns. The main aim of this paper is to examine the role of different types of place attachment – emotional bonds that residents have with their city – in predicting the acceptance of future smart city technologies. In our study conducted among residents of multiple cities in Poland (N = 627), we found that while active place attachment (i.e. conscious identification with a place) predicted more favourable attitudes towards enabling technologies, traditional (natural and unintentional) place attachment was positively associated with acceptance of surveillance technologies regarding everyday monitoring and anti–Covid-19 measures. We also found that the relationship between place attachment and acceptance of future technologies is partially mediated by the use of existing smart city technologies. The implications for city governments and planners are discussed

Awareness and health-enhancing behavior of oral cancer among high school students

Introduction. An increase in head and neck cancers has been observed. Recent findings show an association between those cancers and Human Papillomavirus (HPV) infection. It is known that HPV infections lead to oral cancers, especially among adolescents. Material and methods. An author-delivered questionnaire was carried out among 774 high school students. The survey covered questions about epidemiology, lifestyle, dental behavior, and oral cancer prevention and risk factors. Results. 29.1% of students smoke or vape. 34.9% of respondents think that HPV infections can cause oral cancer. It is believed that transmission occurs through sexual activity (72.2%), vertical (47.5%), horizontal (23.8%), and auto-transmission (14.6%). 20.4% of interviewees noticed changes in their oral mucosa and 20.0% perform mouth self-examination. Conclusions. Students do not have adequate knowledge of oral cancer. Smoking and drinking are still at a high level. The lack of knowledge prevailed in technical schools. Participants attending classes with an advanced curriculum in science had better lifestyle habits than others. There is a need to improve head and neck cancers education and awareness among youth attending technical schools and schools with non-scientific curriculums

Awareness and health-enhancing behavior of oral cancer among high school students

Introduction. An increase in head and neck cancers has been observed. Recent findings show an association between those cancers and Human Papillomavirus (HPV) infection. It is known that HPV infections lead to oral cancers, especially among adolescents. Material and methods. An author-delivered questionnaire was carried out among 774 high school students. The survey covered questions about epidemiology, lifestyle, dental behavior, and oral cancer prevention and risk factors. Results. 29.1% of students smoke or vape. 34.9% of respondents think that HPV infections can cause oral cancer. It is believed that transmission occurs through sexual activity (72.2%), vertical (47.5%), horizontal (23.8%), and auto-transmission (14.6%). 20.4% of interviewees noticed changes in their oral mucosa and 20.0% perform mouth self-examination. Conclusions. Students do not have adequate knowledge of oral cancer. Smoking and drinking are still at a high level. The lack of knowledge prevailed in technical schools. Participants attending classes with an advanced curriculum in science had better lifestyle habits than others. There is a need to improve head and neck cancers education and awareness among youth attending technical schools and schools with non-scientific curriculums

How good is the generalized Langevin equation to describe the dynamics of photo-induced electron transfer in fluid solution?

The dynamics of unimolecular photo-triggered reactions can be strongly affected by the surrounding medium. An accurate description of these reactions requires knowing the free energy surface (FES) and the friction felt by the reactants. Most of theories start from the Langevin equation to derive the dynamics, but there are few examples comparing it with experiments. Here we explore the applicability of a Generalized Langevin Equation (GLE) with an arbitrary potential and a non-markovian friction. To this end we have performed broadband fluorescence measurements with sub-picosecond time resolution of a covalently linked organic electron donor-acceptor system in solvents of changing viscosity and dielectric permittivity. In order to establish the FES of the reaction we resort to stationary electronic spectroscopy. On the other hand, the dynamics of a non-reacting substance, Coumarin 153, provide the calibrating tool for the friction over the FES, which is assumed to be solute independent. A simpler and computationally faster approach uses the Generalized Smoluchowski Equation (GSE), which can be derived from the GLE for pure harmonic potentials. Both approaches reproduce the measurements in most of the solvents reasonably well. At long times, some differences arise from the errors inherited from the analysis of the stationary solvatochromism and at short times from the excess excitation energy. However, whenever the dynamics become slow the GSE shows larger deviations than the GLE, the results of which always agree qualitatively with the measured dynamics, regardless of the solvent viscosity or dielectric properties. The here applied method can be used to predict the dynamics of any other reacting system, given the FES parameters and solvent dynamics are provided. Thus no fitting parameters enter the GLE simulations, within the applicability limits found for the model in this work.Comment: 30 pages, 22 figures, 5 tables, 97 reference

Lipofuscin-mediated photodynamic stress induces adverse changes in nanomechanical properties of retinal pigment epithelium cells

Abstract Retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) is an important part of the blood-retina barrier (BRB) that separates the retina from the choroid. Although melanin granules contribute to the mechanical stability of the BRB complex, it is unknown if the age pigment lipofuscin affects mechanical properties of the tissue. To address this issue the effect of sub-lethal photic stress mediated by phagocytized lipofuscin granules, isolated from RPE of human donors, on morphology and mechanical properties of ARPE-19 cells was investigated. Nanomechanical analysis using atomic force spectroscopy revealed that irradiation of cells containing lipofuscin granules with blue light induced significant softening of the cells, which was accompanied by substantial reorganization of the cell cytoskeleton due to peroxidation of cellular proteins. Our results indicate that lipofuscin-mediated photic stress can cause significant modification of the RPE cells with the potential to disturb biological function of the BRB complex