Tobacco control measures in COVID-19 recovery: an opportune time to restore equity and planetary health.

Tobacco intersects with the COVID-19 pandemic not only in terms of health consequences, but also environmental change and planetary health. Tobacco use exacerbates inequalities, causes catastrophic environmental degradation and climate change and adds burdens to COVID-19-related mortality, which are major challenges to recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the pandemic has provided a chance to combat tobacco use and accelerate efforts to alleviate these challenges in response. The MPOWER measures introduced by the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) can play a crucial role in COVID-19 recovery to fight tobacco use and contribute to sustainable and equitable development. To accelerate recovery, it is critical to call for actions for governments and policy-makers to strengthen synergies and coordinate policy actions emphasising tobacco control and cessation across equity, public health, and climate actions as global authorities pledge to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and net zero emissions targets as part of the Climate Change Conference 2021 (COP26)

Design of a Third-party Reverse Logistics Network under a Carbon Tax Scheme

© 2016 Eastern Macedonia and Thrace Institute of Technology. Reverse logistics network involves significant inherent uncertainties, which cannot be completely characterized because of a lack of adequate historical data. In this study, a multi-product and multi-period interval programming model was developed on the basis of partial information to design an effective reverse logistics network. In addition, the trade-offbetween economic benefits and the environmental burdens from carbon emissions was analyzed by considering the effect of a carbon tax scheme on the reverse logistics network design. Through an improved and modified interval linear programming method, the optimal interval solution was obtained with LINGO. Finally, numerical simulations were conducted to explore the effectiveness of the model and the effect of the carbon tax scheme. Results show that the optimal solution of the reverse logistics network design is robust. The effect of the carbon tax scheme is trivial when the carbon tax is low and significant when the carbon tax is high. As carbon tax gradually increases, carbon emissions effectively decrease, but sharply declines the total profit sharply declines. The findings indicate that the proposed model can effectively solve the reverse logistics network design with partial information under a carbon tax scheme

Validation of a prognostic scoring system for locally recurrent nasopharyngeal carcinoma treated by stereotactic radiosurgery

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Selection of patients with local failure of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) for appropriate type of salvage treatment can be difficult due to the lack of data on comparative efficacy of different salvage treatments. The purpose of the present study was to validate a previously published prognostic scoring system for local failures of NPC treated by radiosurgery based on reported results in the literature.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A literature search yielded 3 published reports on the use of radiosurgery as salvage treatment of NPC that contained sufficient clinical information for validation of the scoring system. Prognostic scores of 18 patients from these reports were calculated and actuarial survival rates were estimated and compared to the original cohort used to design the prognostic scoring system. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was also determined and compared between the current and original patient groups.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The calculated prognostic scores ranged from 0.32 to 1.21, with 15 patients assigned to the poor prognostic group and 3 to the intermediate prognostic group. The actuarial 3-year survival rates in the intermediate and poor prognostic groups were 67% and 0%, respectively. These results were comparable to the observed 3-year survival rates of 74% and 23% in the intermediate and poor prognostic group in the original reports. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for the current patient group was 0.846 which was similar to 0.841 in the original group.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The previously published prognostic scoring system demonstrated good prediction of treatment outcome after radiosurgery in a small group of NPC patients with poor prognosis. Prospective study to validate the scoring system is currently being carried out in our institution.</p

Boundary Terms, Spinors and Kerr/CFT

Similarly as in AdS/CFT, the requirement that the action for spinors be stationary for solutions to the Dirac equation with fixed boundary conditions determines the form of the boundary term that needs to be added to the standard Dirac action in Kerr/CFT. We determine this boundary term and make use of it to calculate the two-point function for spinor fields in Kerr/CFT. This two-point function agrees with the correlator of a two dimensional relativistic conformal field theory.Comment: 15 page

Real-time correlators in warped AdS/CFT correspondence

We study real-time correlators in the warped AdS/CFT correspondence. We apply the prescription used in the usual AdS/CFT correspondence and obtain the retarded Green's functions for the scalar and vector fields in the spacelike warped and the null warped black hole backgrounds. We find that the retarded Green's functions and the cross sections are well consistent with the predictions from dual CFT. Our results not only support strongly the conjectured warped AdS/CFT correspondence, but also show that the usual relativistic AdS/CFT prescription of obtaining the real-time correlators remain effective in more general backgrounds with anisotropic conformal infinity.Comment: 27 page

Hidden Conformal Symmetry of Extremal Kerr-Bolt Spacetimes

We show that extremal Kerr-Bolt spacetimes have a hidden conformal symmetry. In this regard, we consider the wave equation of a massless scalar field propagating in extremal Kerr-Bolt spacetimes and find in the "near region", the wave equation in extremal limit can be written in terms of the $SL(2,R)$ quadratic Casimir. Moreover, we obtain the microscopic entropy of the extremal Kerr-Bolt spacetimes also we calculate the correlation function of a near-region scalar field and find perfect agreement with the dual 2D CFT.Comment: 13 page

The association of migration with multiple tobacco product use among male adults in 15 low- and middle-income countries

Little is known about the impact of migration on tobacco use patterns among men in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). This study aims to explore the association between migration and tobacco use among men in LMICs. We used multilevel regression models to analyze data of 154 425 men from 15 countries from the latest wave of the Demographic and Health Survey. Results showed higher risk of single tobacco product use [relative risk ratio (RRR) = 1.22; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.19–1.26], but importantly of dual (RR = 1.41, 95% CI: 1.36–1.49) and poly-tobacco use (RR = 1.71, 95% CI: 1.57–1.86) among migrant men compared with non-migrants