Reactions to Thirdhand Smoke are Associated with Openness to Smoking in Young Never Smoking Children

To investigate the associations between reactions to thirdhand smoke (THS) and openness to smoking in young children. In a school-based survey in Hong Kong, 4762 Chinese primary school students reported their reactions to THS (one or more of ‘pleasant/happy’, ‘nausea’, ‘excited’, ‘heart beat faster’, ‘relaxed’, ‘dislike the smell’, ‘like the smell’, ‘dizzy’, ‘coughing/choking’, ‘eye uncomfortable’ and ‘none of the above’), smoking status and openness to smoking (lack of a firm intention not to smoke). Factor structure of reactions to THS was investigated with factor scores calculated and categorised. Logistic regression yielded adjusted odds ratio (AOR) of openness to smoking for reactions to THS. Factor analysis yielded two factors including 5 and 4 reactions, which were generally deemed negative and positive, respectively. The proportions of students with factor scores ≥1 for negative and positive reactions were 51.3 and 6.3 %, respectively. In never smokers, openness to smoking was negatively associated with ‘dislike the smell’ (AOR 0.52, 95 % CI 0.39–0.68), ‘coughing/choking’ (0.53, 0.38–0.75), ‘eye uncomfortable’ (0.62, 0.40–0.95) and negative reaction factor score of 2–5 (vs. 0) (0.59, 0.40–0.88), and was positively associated with ‘pleasant/happy’ (2.80, 1.54–5.09), ‘excited’ (2.83, 1.17–6.87), ‘like the smell’ (3.06, 1.49–6.26) and positive reaction factor score of 1–4 (vs. 0) (2.86, 1.83–4.48). In experimental or former smokers, fewer associations reached statistical significance. Negative and positive reactions to THS were negatively and positively associated with openness to smoking, respectively, in young never smoking children.postprin

Negative perceptions of parental smoking among 61810 Hong Kong adolescents: A cross sectional school based survey

INTRODUCTION The present study aimed to investigate the negative perceptions of paternal and maternal smoking and their associated factors among adolescents in Hong Kong. METHODS In a school-based cross-sectional survey in 2010 to 2011, 61,810 Hong Kong secondary school students (mean age 14.6 years, 50.8% boys) reported whether their parents smoked and whether they considered their parents’ smoking unacceptable and minded if their peers knew that their father or mother smoke (indicators of the negative perceptions). Factors associated with negative perceptions of paternal and maternal smoking were explored using multivariable regression models. RESULTS Among students that reported paternal smoking (n=19.184, 29.8%), 50.8% considered it unacceptable, and 21.0% minded if their peers knew of it. Of those reporting maternal smoking (n=3,678, 5.7%), 48.1% considered it unacceptable, and 30.4% minded if their peers knew of it. Generally, the indicators of negative perceptions of parental smoking were associated with younger age, being certain about the harm of smoking and secondhand smoke, no peer smoking, and no secondhand smoke from the respective parent. Considering parental smoking unacceptable was additionally associated with lower family affluence and not living with any smokers apart from the respective parent. CONCLUSIONS About half of adolescents in Hong Kong with a smoking parent considered their parental smoking unacceptable, and about a quarter minded if their peers knew of their parent’s smoking. Such negative perceptions were more common in adolescents who were certain about the harm of tobacco, and had fewer co-residing smokers and no smoking peers.published_or_final_versio

Positive reactions to third-hand smoke exposure are associated with smoking susceptibility among young children in Hong Kong

Poster Discussion 43. Monitoring the Impact of FCTC Implementation: no. PD-1089-21Conference Theme: Tobacco and Non-Communicable DiseasesBACKGROUND: Positive reactions to the first cigarette and secondhand smoke (SHS) predict future smoking. Whether such reactions to third-hand smoke (THS) affect smoking is uncertain. We investigated the cross-sectional associations of reactions to THS with smoking susceptibility and ever smoking among Chinese children. METHODS: A school-based survey was conducted on 5365 primary 2-4 students (54.5% boys; mean age 8.6 years, SD 1.3) from 34 randomly selected schools in Hong Kong using an anonymous self-administered questionnaire. Students were asked “when you can smell cigarette from objects or people, yet no one smokes around, which of …published_or_final_versio

Multimode metal-lined capillaries for Raman collection and sensing

Reflective metal-lined capillary waveguides are useful for laser-power delivery or for collecting scattered light in sensing applications. We theoretically examine the multimode propagation of polarized light in largediameter, metallized, capillary waveguides using a new perturbation technique valid for all waveguide modes. This modeling permits prediction of the collection efficiency of Raman or fluorescent light produced in the waveguide at all angles. These theoretical results are supported by measuring the intensity and angular distribution of collected scattered gas-Raman Stokes power. © 2010 Optical Society of America

3DQ: Compact Quantized Neural Networks for Volumetric Whole Brain Segmentation

Model architectures have been dramatically increasing in size, improving performance at the cost of resource requirements. In this paper we propose 3DQ, a ternary quantization method, applied for the first time to 3D Fully Convolutional Neural Networks (F-CNNs), enabling 16x model compression while maintaining performance on par with full precision models. We extensively evaluate 3DQ on two datasets for the challenging task of whole brain segmentation. Additionally, we showcase our method's ability to generalize on two common 3D architectures, namely 3D U-Net and V-Net. Outperforming a variety of baselines, the proposed method is capable of compressing large 3D models to a few MBytes, alleviating the storage needs in space critical applications.Comment: Accepted to MICCAI 201

Comparison of 20nm silver nanoparticles synthesized with and without a gold core: Structure, dissolution in cell culture media, and biological impact on macrophages

Widespread use of silver nanoparticles raises questions of environmental and biological impact. Many synthesis approaches are used to produce pure silver and silver-shell gold-core particles optimized for specific applications. Since both nanoparticles and silver dissolved from the particles may impact the biological response, it is important to understand the physicochemical characteristics along with the biological impact of nanoparticles produced by different processes. The authors have examined the structure, dissolution, and impact of particle exposure to macrophage cells of two 20 nm silver particles synthesized in different ways, which have different internal structures. The structures were examined by electron microscopy and dissolution measured in Rosewell Park Memorial Institute media with 10% fetal bovine serum. Cytotoxicity and oxidative stress were used to measure biological impact on RAW 264.7 macrophage cells. The particles were polycrystalline, but 20 nm particles grown on gold seed particles had smaller crystallite size with many high-energy grain boundaries and defects, and an apparent higher solubility than 20 nm pure silver particles. Greater oxidative stress and cytotoxicity were observed for 20 nm particles containing the Au core than for 20 nm pure silver particles. A simple dissolution model described the time variation of particle size and dissolved silver for particle loadings larger than 9 μg/ml for the 24-h period characteristic of many in-vitro studies

Associations of unhappiness with sociodemographic factors and unhealthy behaviours in Chinese adolescents

Background: Evidence on the effects of lack of physical exercise, alcohol drinking and smoking on happiness is limited and inconsistent. We examined the associations of unhappiness with sociodemographic factors and these unhealthy behaviours in Chinese adolescents. Methods: In a school-based survey in 2012–13 in Hong Kong, 45 857 secondary school students (mean age 14.8 years, 54.0% boys) reported their happiness level (not happy at all/not very happy/happy/very happy), frequency of physical exercise, alcohol drinking status, smoking status and sociodemographic factors. A main and a sensitivity analysis examined the associations of unhappiness with the study factors, treating unhappiness as a binary (combining ‘not happy at all’ and ‘not very happy’) and a four-level ordered variable, respectively. Results: The main and the sensitivity analysis both showed that unhappiness was associated with older age, very poor families, non-intact families, more co-residing smokers, lack of physical exercise and alcohol drinking; current smokers were unhappier than never and ex-smokers; unhappiness also increased significantly with the number of unhealthy behaviours (P for trend < 0.001). Conclusions: In Chinese adolescents, unhappiness levels were higher in those who had a very poor family, a non-intact family and more co-residing smokers, and in those who were physically inactive, drank alcohol and smoked.postprin