Tobacco consumption in the home: impact on social relationships and marking territory

In this paper we move beyond viewing the home as a mere context for consumer decision-making to explore consumption practices and socio-spatial relationships within the home in relation to tobacco consumption. Based on focus groups conducted across ten European countries, our findings suggest that smokers view the home as a safe haven where they are sheltered from the outside regulatory environment. However, tension between smokers and nonsmokers demonstrates that consumption practices within the home may become a process of negotiation, resulting in smokers marking territory in efforts to avoid conflict

Self-concept, emotions and consumer coping : smoking across Europe

Whereas much previous research focuses on the ways consumers strive to gain social approval, consumption that may result in social disapproval must be considered. In order to do so, the purpose of this paper is to explore consumers' self-concepts within a risky consumption context, namely smoking. Self-concept discrepancies and the resulting emotions and coping strategies are identified. A qualitative methodology based on 30 focus groups conducted across ten European countries is employed. Findings demonstrate self-concept discrepancies between both the actual self and ought/ideal guiding end states, as well as between the 'I' and social selves. Such discrepancies generate negative emotions and result in emotion-focused coping strategies. In addition, the accuracy of smokers' social self-concepts with reference to the actual perceptions of non-smokers is discussed. Important implications for the design of effective anti-smoking advertising are discussed, based on the findings. It is suggested that counter advertising should encourage dialogue between smokers and non-smokers and that message themes should centre on building the self-efficacy of smokers. The reason why the social context should be an integral part of consumer self-concept research is highlighted. Moreover, the importance of moving beyond merely understanding the existence of self-discrepancies, to focus on the emotions that are generated by these discrepancies and the consequent coping strategies employed to resolve them is identified. As such, the potential contributions that may arise by recognising the intersection between two bodies of literature that are often treated separately, namely, consumer coping and the self-concept, are highlighted

Modified Activated Carbon for Optimum DNP Removal

This study investigates the capability of chemical pre-treated activated carbon in adsorbing phenolic compound 2, 4-dinitrophenol from aqueous solution. Chemical treatments such as acidic and basic treatment were applied on activated carbon. 0.3 mg of treated activated carbon was placed in Erlenmeyer flasks containing 50 mL of 5 mg/L 2, 4-dinitrophenol and incubated at 25 ± 2 oC with rotation speed of 150 rpm for 6 hours. Absorbance value was measured and calculated as the final concentration of 2, 4-dinitrophenol. The effects of three parameters; pH, temperature and contact time were examined by both treated activated carbons. Acidic treatment of activated carbon has a better adsorption capability. The highest percentage of 92 %, 78 % and 64 % occurred at pH 3, temperature 20 oC and at 2 hours, respectively. For the optimization using Response Surface Methodology, the predicted optimized physicochemical parameters were at pH 4, temperature 40 oC, and 2.5 hours contact time, which resulted in 98% removal of 2, 4-dinitrophenol

No place to hide: two pilot studies assessing the effectiveness of adding a health warning to the cigarette stick

bjective To examine whether health warnings printed onto the cigarette stick would increase intentions to quit. Methods Two experiments with smokers were conducted. The first study was conducted in Scotland on 88 adult (aged 18 or over) smokers recruited around two university campuses. The second study was conducted on 120 adult (aged 16 or over) smokers recruited around inner city cafes in Greece. Study 1 tested smokers� ratings of the attractiveness of cigarettes printed with either �minutes of life lost� (minute condition) or �toxic constituents� (toxic condition) against a control cigarette as well as the change in participants� pre-exposure and postexposure quitting intentions. Study 2 only assessed the effect of the minute condition on smokers� change in quitting intentions. Analysis of variance and paired-samples t tests were undertaken. Participants in Study 1 were shown a picture of the stimuli, with participants in Study 2 given the actual cigarette to hold. Results The analyses revealed increases in quitting intentions postexposure for the minute condition (mean paired difference=0.68, p<0.001) and the toxic condition (mean paired difference=0.23, p<0.05) in Study 1. Similar findings were found for the minute condition (mean paired difference=0.38, p<0.001) in Study 2. Conclusions These results suggest that printing a public health warning on the cigarette stick may result in higher intentions to quit smoking. However, many other messages (eg, benefits of quitting, harmful effects of secondhand smoke) which can be printed on the cigarette stick have not been tested in the current studies

Genetic susceptibility loci for cardiovascular disease and their impact on atherosclerotic plaques

Background: Atherosclerosis is a chronic inflammatory disease in part caused by lipid uptake in the vascular wall, but the exact underlying mechanisms leading to acute myocardial infarction and stroke remain poorly understood. Large consortia identified genetic susceptibility loci that associate with large artery ischemic stroke and coronary artery disease. However, deciphering their underlying mechanisms are challenging. Histological studies identified destabilizing characteristics in human atherosclerotic plaques that associate with clinical outcome. To what extent established susceptibility loci for large artery ischemic stroke and coronary artery disease relate to plaque characteristics is thus far unknown but may point to novel mechanisms. Methods: We studied the associations of 61 established cardiovascular risk loci with 7 histological plaque characteristics assessed in 1443 carotid plaque specimens from the Athero-Express Biobank Study. We also assessed if the genotyped cardiovascular risk loci impact the tissue-specific gene expression in 2 independent biobanks, Biobank of Karolinska Endarterectomy and Stockholm Atherosclerosis Gene Expression. Results: A total of 21 established risk variants (out of 61) nominally associated to a plaque characteristic. One variant (rs12539895, risk allele A) at 7q22 associated to a reduction of intraplaque fat, P=5.09×10−6 after correction for multiple testing. We further characterized this 7q22 Locus and show tissue-specific effects of rs12539895 on HBP1 expression in plaques and COG5 expression in whole blood and provide data from public resources showing an association with decreased LDL (low-density lipoprotein) and increase HDL (high-density lipoprotein) in the blood. Conclusions: Our study supports the view that cardiovascular susceptibility loci may exert their effect by influencing the atherosclerotic plaque characteristics

UAV based wilt detection system via convolutional neural networks

YesThe significant role of plants can be observed through the dependency of animals and humans on them. Oxygen, materials, food and the beauty of the world are contributed by plants. Climate change, the decrease in pollinators, and plant diseases are causing a significant decline in both quality and coverage ratio of the plants and crops on a global scale. In developed countries, above 80 percent of rural production is produced by sharecropping. However, due to widespread diseases in plants, yields are reported to have declined by more than a half. These diseases are identified and diagnosed by the agricultural and forestry department. Manual inspection on a large area of fields requires a huge amount of time and effort, thereby reduces the effectiveness significantly. To counter this problem, we propose an automatic disease detection and classification method in radish fields by using a camera attached to an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to capture high quality images from the fields and analyze them by extracting both color and texture features, then we used K-means clustering to filter radish regions and feeds them into a fine-tuned GoogleNet to detect Fusarium wilt of radish efficiently at early stage and allow the authorities to take timely action which ensures the food safety for current and future generations.Supported by Korea Institute of Planning and Evaluation for Technology in Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries(IPET) through Agri-Bio Industry Technology Development Program, funded by Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs(MAFRA) (316033-04-2-338 SB030)

Genome-wide association meta-analysis of fish and EPA+DHA consumption in 17 US and European cohorts

Background: Regular fish and omega-3 consumption may have several health benefits and are recommended by major dietary guidelines. Yet, their intakes remain remarkably variable both within and across populations, which could partly owe to genetic influences. Objective: To identify common genetic variants that influence fish and dietary eicosapentaenoic acid plus docosahexaenoic acid (EPA+DHA) consumption. Design: We conducted genome-wide association (GWA) meta-analysis of fish (n = 86, 467) and EPA +DHA (n = 62, 265) consumption in 17 cohorts of European descent from the CHARGE (Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology) Consortium Nutrition Working Group. Results from cohort-specific GWA analyses (additive model) for fish and EPA+DHA consumption were adjusted for age, sex, energy intake, and population stratification, and meta-analyzed separately using fixed-effect meta-analysis with inverse variance weights (METAL software). Additionally, heritability was estimated in 2 cohorts. Results: Heritability estimates for fish and EPA+DHA consumption ranged from 0.13