Effectiveness of a mobile smoking cessation service in reaching elderly smokers and predictors of quitting

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Different smoking cessation programmes have been developed in the last decade but utilization by the elderly is low. We evaluated a pilot mobile smoking cessation service for the Chinese elderly in Hong Kong and identified predictors of quitting.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The Mobile Smoking Cessation Programme (MSCP) targeted elderly smokers (aged 60 or above) and provided service in a place that was convenient to the elderly. Trained counsellors provided individual counselling and 4 week's free supply of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT). Follow up was arranged at 1 month by face-to-face and at 3 and 6 months by telephone plus urinary cotinine validation. A structured record sheet was used for data collection. The service was evaluated in terms of process, outcome and cost.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>102 governmental and non-governmental social service units and private residential homes for the elderly participated in the MSCP. We held 90 health talks with 3266 elderly (1140 smokers and 2126 non-smokers) attended. Of the 1140 smokers, 365 (32%) received intensive smoking cessation service. By intention-to-treat, the validated 7 day point prevalence quit rate was 20.3% (95% confidence interval: 16.2%–24.8%). Smoking less than 11 cigarettes per day and being adherent to NRT for 4 weeks or more were significant predictors of quitting. The average cost per contact was US$54 (smokers only); per smoker with counselling: US$168; per self-reported quitter: US$594; and per cotinine validated quitter: US$827.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This mobile smoking cessation programme was acceptable to elderly Chinese smokers, with quit rate comparable to other comprehensive programmes in the West. A mobile clinic is a promising model to reach the elderly and probably other hard to reach smokers.</p

Interstellar Turbulence II: Implications and Effects

Interstellar turbulence has implications for the dispersal and mixing of the elements, cloud chemistry, cosmic ray scattering, and radio wave propagation through the ionized medium. This review discusses the observations and theory of these effects. Metallicity fluctuations are summarized, and the theory of turbulent transport of passive tracers is reviewed. Modeling methods, turbulent concentration of dust grains, and the turbulent washout of radial abundance gradients are discussed. Interstellar chemistry is affected by turbulent transport of various species between environments with different physical properties and by turbulent heating in shocks, vortical dissipation regions, and local regions of enhanced ambipolar diffusion. Cosmic rays are scattered and accelerated in turbulent magnetic waves and shocks, and they generate turbulence on the scale of their gyroradii. Radio wave scintillation is an important diagnostic for small scale turbulence in the ionized medium, giving information about the power spectrum and amplitude of fluctuations. The theory of diffraction and refraction is reviewed, as are the main observations and scintillation regions.Comment: 46 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysic

MDCK Cystogenesis Driven by Cell Stabilization within Computational Analogues

The study of epithelial morphogenesis is fundamental to increasing our understanding of organ function and disease. Great progress has been made through study of culture systems such as Madin-Darby canine kidney (MDCK) cells, but many aspects of even simple morphogenesis remain unclear. For example, are specific cell actions tightly coupled to the characteristics of the cell's environment or are they more often cell state dependent? How does the single lumen, single cell layer cyst consistently emerge from a variety of cell actions? To improve insight, we instantiated in silico analogues that used hypothesized cell behavior mechanisms to mimic MDCK cystogenesis. We tested them through in vitro experimentation and quantitative validation. We observed novel growth patterns, including a cell behavior shift that began around day five of growth. We created agent-oriented analogues that used the cellular Potts model along with an Iterative Refinement protocol. Following several refinements, we achieved a degree of validation for two separate mechanisms. Both survived falsification and achieved prespecified measures of similarity to cell culture properties. In silico components and mechanisms mapped to in vitro counterparts. In silico, the axis of cell division significantly affects lumen number without changing cell number or cyst size. Reducing the amount of in silico luminal cell death had limited effect on cystogenesis. Simulations provide an observable theory for cystogenesis based on hypothesized, cell-level operating principles

Leaching as a pretreatment process to complement torrefaction in improving co-firing characteristics of Jatropha curcas seed cake

The presence of certain inorganic elements in biomass causes issues such as slagging, fouling and corrosion when co-firing with coal for power generation. In this work, the efficacy of leaching to remove these elements from Jatropha curcas seed cake was investigated. Leaching of both untorrefied and torrefied seed cakes was carried out in Milli-Q water at temperatures of 20, 35 and 50 °C. At 20 °C, the two critical elements, potassium and chlorine, decreased by as much as 85 and 97 %, respectively. Leaching at higher temperatures was only beneficial for the more intensely torrefied biomass, since they were more resistant to leaching. The electrical conductivity and ion content of the leachates were measured, as were the inorganic elemental content, dry ash content, volatile matter content and higher heating value (HHV) of the solid seed cake. A secondary benefit of the leaching was an increase in the HHV by up to 10 %

Search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √ s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses 20.3 fb−1 of √ s = 8 TeV data collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are required to have at least one jet with pT > 120 GeV and no leptons. Nine signal regions are considered with increasing missing transverse momentum requirements between Emiss T > 150 GeV and Emiss T > 700 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model expectations. The results are translated into exclusion limits on models with either large extra spatial dimensions, pair production of weakly interacting dark matter candidates, or production of very light gravitinos in a gauge-mediated supersymmetric model. In addition, limits on the production of an invisibly decaying Higgs-like boson leading to similar topologies in the final state are presente

The ExoMol database: Molecular line lists for exoplanet and other hot atmospheres

The ExoMol database (www.exomol.com) provides extensive line lists of molecular transitions which are valid over extended temperature ranges. The status of the current release of the database is reviewed and a new data structure is specified. This structure augments the provision of energy levels (and hence transition frequencies) and Einstein A coefficients with other key properties, including lifetimes of individual states, temperature-dependent cooling functions, Landé g-factors, partition functions, cross sections, k-coefficients and transition dipoles with phase relations. Particular attention is paid to the treatment of pressure broadening parameters. The new data structure includes a definition file which provides the necessary information for utilities accessing ExoMol through its application programming interface (API). Prospects for the inclusion of new species into the database are discussed

Institutional risk factors for norovirus outbreaks in Hong Kong elderly homes: a retrospective cohort study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Most of the institutional outbreaks of norovirus in Hong Kong occur in elderly homes, the proportion being 69% in 2006. Residents in elderly homes are a special population seriously affected by norovirus infections, it is necessary to investigate the risk factors of the norovirus outbreaks in Hong Kong elderly homes at the facility level.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A cohort of 748 elderly homes was followed up from January 2005 to December 2007; each elderly home was treated as one observation unit and the outcome event was the norovirus outbreak. Cox regression models were fitted to estimate the rate ratio (RR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) for the potential risk factors.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A total of 276 norovirus outbreaks were confirmed during the study period; the outbreak rate was 12.2 (95% CI: 9.9-14.6) per 100 home-years; elderly homes with a larger capacity (RR = 1.4, 95% CI: 1.3-1.5 (per 30-resident increment)), a higher staff-to-resident ratio (RR = 1.2, 95% CI: 1.1-1.3 (per 1/30 increment) and better wheelchair accessibility (RR = 2.0, 95% CI: 1.3-3.2) were found to have an elevated norovirus outbreak rate in Hong Kong elderly homes; Elderly homes with partitions between beds had a lower rate of norovirus outbreaks (RR = 0.6, 95% CI: 0.4-0.8).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Elderly home capacity, staff-to-resident ratio and wheelchair accessibility were risk factors for norovirus outbreaks in Hong Kong elderly homes. Partitions between beds were a protective factor of norovirus outbreaks. These results should be considered in the infection control in Hong Kong elderly homes.</p

Investigating Behaviour and Population Dynamics of Striped Marlin (Kajikia audax) from the Southwest Pacific Ocean with Satellite Tags

Behaviour and distribution of striped marlin within the southwest Pacific Ocean were investigated using electronic tagging data collected from 2005–2008. A continuous-time correlated random-walk Kalman filter was used to integrate double-tagging data exhibiting variable error structures into movement trajectories composed of regular time-steps. This state-space trajectory integration approach improved longitude and latitude error distributions by 38.5 km and 22.2 km respectively. Using these trajectories as inputs, a behavioural classification model was developed to infer when, and where, ‘transiting’ and ‘area-restricted’ (ARB) pseudo-behavioural states occurred. ARB tended to occur at shallower depths (108±49 m) than did transiting behaviours (127±57 m). A 16 day post-release period of diminished ARB activity suggests that patterns of behaviour were affected by the capture and/or tagging events, implying that tagged animals may exhibit atypical behaviour upon release. The striped marlin in this study dove deeper and spent greater time at ≥200 m depth than those in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean. As marlin reached tropical latitudes (20–21°S) they consistently reversed directions, increased swimming speed and shifted to transiting behaviour. Reversals in the tropics also coincided with increases in swimming depth, including increased time ≥250 m. Our research provides enhanced understanding of the behavioural ecology of striped marlin. This has implications for the effectiveness of spatially explicit population models and we demonstrate the need to consider geographic variation when standardizing CPUE by depth, and provide data to inform natural and recreational fishing mortality parameters

At the Biological Modeling and Simulation Frontier

We provide a rationale for and describe examples of synthetic modeling and simulation (M&S) of biological systems. We explain how synthetic methods are distinct from familiar inductive methods. Synthetic M&S is a means to better understand the mechanisms that generate normal and disease-related phenomena observed in research, and how compounds of interest interact with them to alter phenomena. An objective is to build better, working hypotheses of plausible mechanisms. A synthetic model is an extant hypothesis: execution produces an observable mechanism and phenomena. Mobile objects representing compounds carry information enabling components to distinguish between them and react accordingly when different compounds are studied simultaneously. We argue that the familiar inductive approaches contribute to the general inefficiencies being experienced by pharmaceutical R&D, and that use of synthetic approaches accelerates and improves R&D decision-making and thus the drug development process. A reason is that synthetic models encourage and facilitate abductive scientific reasoning, a primary means of knowledge creation and creative cognition. When synthetic models are executed, we observe different aspects of knowledge in action from different perspectives. These models can be tuned to reflect differences in experimental conditions and individuals, making translational research more concrete while moving us closer to personalized medicine