Quit Attempt Correlates among Smokers by Race/Ethnicity

Introduction: Cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of premature deaths in the U.S., accounting for approximately 443,000 deaths annually. Although smoking prevalence in recent decades has declined substantially among all racial/ethnic groups, disparities in smoking-related behaviors among racial/ethnic groups continue to exist. Two of the goals of Healthy People 2020 are to reduce smoking prevalence among adults to 12% or less and to increase smoking cessation attempts by adult smokers from 41% to 80%. Our study assesses whether correlates of quit attempts vary by race/ethnicity among adult (≥18 years) smokers in the U.S. Understanding racial/ethnic differences in how both internal and external factors affect quit attempts is important for targeting smoking-cessation interventions to decrease tobacco-use disparities. Methods: We used 2003 Tobacco Use Supplement to the Current Population Survey (CPS) data from 16,213 adults to examine whether the relationship between demographic characteristics, smoking behaviors, smoking policies and having made a quit attempt in the past year varied by race/ethnicity. Results: Hispanics and persons of multiple races were more likely to have made a quit attempt than whites. Overall, younger individuals and those with >high school education, who smoked fewer cigarettes per day and had smoked for fewer years were more likely to have made a quit attempt. Having a smoke-free home, receiving a doctor’s advice to quit, smoking menthol cigarettes and having a greater time to when you smoked your first cigarette of the day were also associated with having made a quit attempt. The relationship between these four variables and quit attempts varied by race/ethnicity; most notably receiving a doctor’s advice was not related to quit attempts among Asian American/Pacific Islanders and menthol use among whites was associated with a lower prevalence of quit attempts while black menthol users were more likely to have made a quit attempt than white non-menthol users. Conclusions: Most correlates of quit attempts were similar across all racial/ethnic groups. Therefore population-based comprehensive tobacco control programs that increase quit attempts and successful cessation among all racial/ethnic groups should be continued and expanded. Additional strategies may be needed to encourage quit attempts among less educated, older, and more addicted smokers

Maximum Parsimony on Phylogenetic networks

Abstract Background Phylogenetic networks are generalizations of phylogenetic trees, that are used to model evolutionary events in various contexts. Several different methods and criteria have been introduced for reconstructing phylogenetic trees. Maximum Parsimony is a character-based approach that infers a phylogenetic tree by minimizing the total number of evolutionary steps required to explain a given set of data assigned on the leaves. Exact solutions for optimizing parsimony scores on phylogenetic trees have been introduced in the past. Results In this paper, we define the parsimony score on networks as the sum of the substitution costs along all the edges of the network; and show that certain well-known algorithms that calculate the optimum parsimony score on trees, such as Sankoff and Fitch algorithms extend naturally for networks, barring conflicting assignments at the reticulate vertices. We provide heuristics for finding the optimum parsimony scores on networks. Our algorithms can be applied for any cost matrix that may contain unequal substitution costs of transforming between different characters along different edges of the network. We analyzed this for experimental data on 10 leaves or fewer with at most 2 reticulations and found that for almost all networks, the bounds returned by the heuristics matched with the exhaustively determined optimum parsimony scores. Conclusion The parsimony score we define here does not directly reflect the cost of the best tree in the network that displays the evolution of the character. However, when searching for the most parsimonious network that describes a collection of characters, it becomes necessary to add additional cost considerations to prefer simpler structures, such as trees over networks. The parsimony score on a network that we describe here takes into account the substitution costs along the additional edges incident on each reticulate vertex, in addition to the substitution costs along the other edges which are common to all the branching patterns introduced by the reticulate vertices. Thus the score contains an in-built cost for the number of reticulate vertices in the network, and would provide a criterion that is comparable among all networks. Although the problem of finding the parsimony score on the network is believed to be computationally hard to solve, heuristics such as the ones described here would be beneficial in our efforts to find a most parsimonious network.</p

Tensile Creep and Creep-Recovery Behavior of a SiC-Fiber Si 3 N 4 -Matrix Composite

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/65802/1/j.1151-2916.1993.tb03753.x.pd

Grassland Resistance and Resilience after Drought Depends on Management Intensity and Species Richness

The degree to which biodiversity may promote the stability of grasslands in the light of climatic variability, such as prolonged summer drought, has attracted considerable interest. Studies so far yielded inconsistent results and in addition, the effect of different grassland management practices on their response to drought remains an open question. We experimentally combined the manipulation of prolonged summer drought (sheltered vs. unsheltered sites), plant species loss (6 levels of 60 down to 1 species) and management intensity (4 levels varying in mowing frequency and amount of fertilizer application). Stability was measured as resistance and resilience of aboveground biomass production in grasslands against decreased summer precipitation, where resistance is the difference between drought treatments directly after drought induction and resilience is the difference between drought treatments in spring of the following year. We hypothesized that (i) management intensification amplifies biomass decrease under drought, (ii) resistance decreases with increasing species richness and with management intensification and (iii) resilience increases with increasing species richness and with management intensification

How moving home influences appliance ownership: a Passivhaus case study

Low carbon dwellings shift the focus to electricity consumption and appliances by significantly lowering space heating energy consumption. Using a UK Passivhaus (low carbon) case study, interviews and pre/post-move-in appliance audits were employed to investigate how moving home can change the appliance requirements of appliance-using practices. Changes in appliance ownership were due to differences in how appliance-using practices (e.g. cooking, laundering, homemaking) were being performed. Existing/new appliances complemented/conflicted with a new home on the basis of whether the social meanings of specific appliance-using practices (e.g. stylishness, convenience, thermal comfort, cleanliness) could be met. This was evident, when moving home more generally, by households buying new modern appliances and managing spatial constraints. More specifically, regarding Passivhaus, hosting and homemaking practices were performed in ways that met thermal comfort expectations, in addition to appliance purchasing also being influenced by a fear that the Passivhaus technologies could fail. Whilst skills and competences were needed to perform appliance-using practices, these were less prominent in influencing appliance ownership changes. Conclusions include reflections on how the elements of appliance-using practices change when moving home, as well as what adhering to building standards could mean for the standardisation of appliance-using practices and domestic life more generally

Optical Interventions for Myopia Control

Myopia is a common eye problem that is becoming more prevalent worldwide, particularly in East Asia. The cost of long-term care for myopia-related eye diseases significantly impacts the respective economies and places a great burden on the public health services. There is no doubt that myopia is a major East Asian public health concern and a significant concern globally, and effective control of myopia would help to alleviate the costs that are related to this problem. Currently, there are many types of optical interventions involving the use of spectacle lenses or contact lenses to slow down myopia progression in children. However, none of these myopia control methods have been proven to stop the development or progression of myopia completely and each method has their own limitations. Orthokeratology, soft bifocal contact lenses, prismatic bifocals, and myopic defocus incorporated spectacle lenses have all been shown to have clinically meaningful reductions in myopia progression ranging from 45% to 60%. Although pharmaceutical agents such as atropine have relatively better myopia control effects than optical methods, the associated side effects and uncertainty in the safety of long-term atropine use may hinder its widespread clinical application. Optical interventions are non-invasive and have become more popular compared to pharmaceutical treatments. This chapter provides an overview of the optical interventions for slowing myopia progression and their effectiveness in myopia control. Other myopia control methods will also be discussed briefly

DNA Specificity Determinants Associate with Distinct Transcription Factor Functions

To elucidate how genomic sequences build transcriptional control networks, we need to understand the connection between DNA sequence and transcription factor binding and function. Binding predictions based solely on consensus predictions are limited, because a single factor can use degenerate sequence motifs and because related transcription factors often prefer identical sequences. The ETS family transcription factor, ETS1, exemplifies these challenges. Unexpected, redundant occupancy of ETS1 and other ETS proteins is observed at promoters of housekeeping genes in T cells due to common sequence preferences and the presence of strong consensus motifs. However, ETS1 exhibits a specific function in T cell activation; thus, unique transcriptional targets are predicted. To uncover the sequence motifs that mediate specific functions of ETS1, a genome-wide approach, chromatin immunoprecipitation coupled with high-throughput sequencing (ChIP-seq), identified both promoter and enhancer binding events in Jurkat T cells. A comparison with DNase I sensitivity both validated the dataset and also improved accuracy. Redundant occupancy of ETS1 with the ETS protein GABPA occurred primarily in promoters of housekeeping genes, whereas ETS1 specific occupancy occurred in the enhancers of T cell–specific genes. Two routes to ETS1 specificity were identified: an intrinsic preference of ETS1 for a variant of the ETS family consensus sequence and the presence of a composite sequence that can support cooperative binding with a RUNX transcription factor. Genome-wide occupancy of RUNX factors corroborated the importance of this partnership. Furthermore, genome-wide occupancy of co-activator CBP indicated tight co-localization with ETS1 at specific enhancers, but not redundant promoters. The distinct sequences associated with redundant versus specific ETS1 occupancy were predictive of promoter or enhancer location and the ontology of nearby genes. These findings demonstrate that diversity of DNA binding motifs may enable variable transcription factor function at different genomic sites