Correlates of Smoking Cessation Among Filipino Immigrant Men

A survey on tobacco use among 318 Filipino immigrant men aged 40–75 years was conducted in Los Angeles, California. Those who reported more English language use with their family, friends and neighbors (OR = 1.31) and who lived in households with complete smoking prohibition (OR = 3.82) were more likely to be successful in quitting smoking. Those who endorsed more positive beliefs on physical and social consequences of smoking (OR = 0.69) and who had mostly smoking friends (OR = 0.37) were less likely to be successful in quitting smoking. Our findings suggest that prohibiting smoking in households, creating social networks of non-smokers, and education or counseling are important components of a smoking cessation intervention for Filipino immigrant men

Capacidad de carga y efectos del nivel de protección en tres AMPs de las Islas Baleares (Mediterráneo Noroccidental)

The monitoring of fisheries target species in three marine protected areas (MPAs) located in the NW Mediterranean provided important conclusions on management effects. The abundance, occurrence and biomass of large fish showed consistent and growing trends inside the MPAs. Fish diversity was also favoured by protection. Nevertheless, spatial variance of these indicators at a medium scale was often of the same order as that caused by time between different protection levels. The carrying capacity was determined for the first time in western Mediterranean MPAs in five out of six sites studied, and in all cases it was achieved within the first five years of protection. The observed values indicate that the system of the studied MPAs is representative of the general coastal environment of the Balearic Islands, but is far from the potential of other MPAs which are considered as hot spots in other localities. Likewise, this study shows that partially protected areas can also be fairly effective if their habitats fit with those required by target species and fishing modalities are suitably regulated or banned.El seguimiento de especies de peces vulnerables a la pesca en 3 AMPs del Mediterráneo Occidental ha permitido extraer conclusiones importantes sobre los efectos de la gestión. La abundancia y ocurrencia de peces grandes así como la biomasa presentaron patrones temporales consistentes y crecientes en las AMPs. Conjuntamente al incremento de biomasa, la diversidad de peces también aumentó con la protección. Sin embargo, la varianza de estos indicadores a mediana escala espacial fue a menudo del mismo orden que la producida por el tiempo y el nivel de protección. La capacidad de carga se ha establecido por primera vez en AMPs del Mediterráneo Occidental en 5 de los 6 sitios estudiados. En todos los casos esta situación se alcanzó dentro de los primeros 5 años de protección. Los resultados indican que el sistema de AMPs estudiado es representativo de la mayor parte de las costas de Baleares pero que está lejos del potencial de otras AMPs consideradas como hot spots en otros enclaves geográficos. Asimismo, este trabajo pone de manifiesto que las áreas de reserva parcial pueden ser muy efectivas si su hábitat se ajusta al de las especies que quieren protegerse y si las modalidades de pesca restringidas o prohibidas son las adecuadas

Point-of-Purchase Alcohol Ads in One Low-Income Community in Central California: Occurrence and Women’s Perceptions

This study explores the occurrence of point-of-purchase (POP) alcohol ads in one low-income community Central California, identifies their target audience and themes, and obtains their perspective on how the ads influence women’s alcohol consumption. Methods included observation of POP alcohol ads in local supermarket and convenience stores that sell alcohol products, content analysis of a selection of these POP alcohol ads, and focus group discussions with young women who are mostly in their twenties from both Latina and non-Latina backgrounds. A total of 2,021 POP alcohol ads were observed in 164 retail establishments that sell alcohol. Of these ads, we took photos of 64 different ads for content analysis. Our content analysis indicated that most POP alcohol poster ads appealed both to men and women, with themes mainly related to sex and sports. Focus group interviews indicated that sex and sports-themed alcohol ads, coupled with the presence of peers and family members that drink alcohol, are influential in women’s decisions to drink. The influence of alcohol ads on norms regarding alcohol consumption warrant stronger anti-alcohol policies, such as the banning alcohol ads in places frequented by minors, and the implementation of anti-alcohol marketing campaigns with a health consequences focus

Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus NSs Protein Supports Infection and Systemic Movement of a Potyvirus and Is a Symptom Determinant

Plant viruses are inducers and targets of antiviral RNA silencing. To condition susceptibility, most plant viruses encode silencing suppressor proteins that interfere with antiviral RNA silencing. The NSs protein is an RNA silencing suppressor in orthotospoviruses, such as the tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV). The mechanism of RNA silencing suppression by NSs and its role in virus infection and movement are poorly understood. Here, we cloned and tagged TSWV NSs and expressed it from a GFP-tagged turnip mosaic virus (TuMV-GFP) carrying either a wild-type or suppressor-deficient (AS9) helper component proteinase (HC-Pro). When expressed in cis, NSs restored pathogenicity and promoted systemic infection of suppressor-deficient TuMV-AS9-GFP in Nicotiana benthamiana and Arabidopsis thaliana. Inactivating mutations were introduced in NSs RNA-binding domain one. A genetic analysis with active and suppressor-deficient NSs, in combination with wild-type and mutant plants lacking essential components of the RNA silencing machinery, showed that the NSs insert is stable when expressed from a potyvirus. NSs can functionally replace potyviral HC-Pro, condition virus susceptibility, and promote systemic infection and symptom development by suppressing antiviral RNA silencing through a mechanism that partially overlaps that of potyviral HC-Pro. The results presented provide new insight into the mechanism of silencing suppression by NSs and its effect on virus infection

Composición cualitativa del fitoplancton de los embalses de Cúber y Gorg Blau (Serra de Tramuntana, Mallorca). I. Cyanophyta y Dinophyta

Abstract not availabl

Reheating constraints and consistency relations of the Starobinsky model and some of its generalizations

Building on the success of the Starobinsky model in describing the inflationary period of the universe, we investigate two simple generalizations of this model and their constraints imposed by the reheating epoch. The first generalization takes the form $R^{2p}$, while the second is the $\alpha$-Starobinsky model. We first focus on the case where $p=1$ or equivalently, $\alpha=1$, which corresponds to the original Starobinsky model. We derive exact consistency relations between observables and cosmological quantities, without neglecting any terms, and impose the reheating condition $0 < \omega_{re} < 0.25$, where $\omega_{re}$ is the equation of state parameter at the end of reheating. This allows us to obtain new bounds for $n_s$ and $r$ that satisfy this condition and apply them to other observables and cosmological quantities. We repeat this process for the cases where $p \neq 1$ and $\alpha \neq 1$ and find that these generalizations only result in minor modifications of the Starobinsky model, including the potential and the bounds on observables and cosmological quantities.Comment: 17 pages, 2 figure

Induction and suppression of antiviral RNA silencing by Tomato spotted wilt virus

RNA silencing is an essential antiviral defense system in plants. Triggered by doublestranded RNA, silencing results in degradation or translational repression of target RNA. Viruses are inducers and targets of RNA silencing. To condition susceptibility, most plant viruses encode silencing suppressor proteins that interfere with RNA silencing. Tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV) NSs protein is an RNA silencing suppressor. The mechanism of RNA silencing suppression by NSs and its role in virus infection and movement remain to be determined. We cloned NSs from the Hawaii isolate of TSWV. Using two independent assays, we show that NSs restored pathogenicity and supported the formation of local infection foci by suppressor-deficient Turnip mosaic virus (TuMV) and Turnip crinkle virus (TCV). Suppression of silencing directed against heterologous viruses establishes the foundation to determine the mechanism of antiviral RNA silencing suppression by NSs

Estimation of the Interaction Forces in a Compliant pHRI Gripper

Physical human–robot interaction (pHRI) is an essential skill for robots expected to work with humans, such as assistive or rescue robots. However, due to hard safety and compliance constraints, pHRI is still underdeveloped in practice. Tactile sensing is vital for pHRI, as constant occlusions while grasping make it hard to rely on vision or range sensors alone. More specifically, measuring interaction forces in the gripper is crucial to avoid injuries, predict user intention and perform successful collaborative movements. This work exploits the inherent compliance of a gripper with four underactuated fingers which was previously designed by the authors and designed to manipulate human limbs. A new analytical model is proposed to calculate the external interaction forces by combining all finger forces, which are estimated by using the gripper proprioceptive sensor readings uniquely. An experimental evaluation of the method and an example application in a control system with active compliance have been included to evaluate performance. The results prove that the proposed finger arrangement offers good performance at measuring the lateral interaction forces and torque around the gripper’s Z-axis, providing a convenient and efficient way of implementing adaptive and compliant grasping for pHRI applications.This work was supported by the Universidad de Málaga, project UMA20-FEDERJA-052. Partial funding for open access charge: Universidad de Málag

A Survey on FPGA-Based Sensor Systems: Towards Intelligent and Reconfigurable Low-Power Sensors for Computer Vision, Control and Signal Processing

The current trend in the evolution of sensor systems seeks ways to provide more accuracy and resolution, while at the same time decreasing the size and power consumption. The use of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) provides specific reprogrammable hardware technology that can be properly exploited to obtain a reconfigurable sensor system. This adaptation capability enables the implementation of complex applications using the partial reconfigurability at a very low-power consumption. For highly demanding tasks FPGAs have been favored due to the high efficiency provided by their architectural flexibility (parallelism, on-chip memory, etc.), reconfigurability and superb performance in the development of algorithms. FPGAs have improved the performance of sensor systems and have triggered a clear increase in their use in new fields of application. A new generation of smarter, reconfigurable and lower power consumption sensors is being developed in Spain based on FPGAs. In this paper, a review of these developments is presented, describing as well the FPGA technologies employed by the different research groups and providing an overview of future research within this field.The research leading to these results has received funding from the Spanish Government and European FEDER funds (DPI2012-32390), the Valencia Regional Government (PROMETEO/2013/085) and the University of Alicante (GRE12-17)

Computer Networks Virtualization with GNS3: Evaluating a solution to optimize resources and achieve a distance learning

Designing educational resources allow students to modify their learning process. In particular, on-line and downloadable educational resources have been successfully used in engineering education the last years [1]. Usually, these resources are free and accessible from web. In addition, they are designed and developed by lecturers and used by their students. But, they are rarely developed by students in order to be used by other students. In this work-in-progress, lecturers and students are working together to implement educational resources, which can be used by students to improve the learning process of computer networks subject in engineering studies. In particular, network topologies to model LAN (Local Area Network) and MAN (Metropolitan Area Network) are virtualized in order to simulate the behavior of the links and nodes when they are interconnected with different physical and logical design.This work is supported by the “Computer Science Research Institute” of the University of Alicante through the aid “Internationalization and quality of the doctoral program”