A report on a randomly sampled questionnaire survey about renal stone disease in Hong Kong

Objectives: To investigate the prevalence and characteristics of patients with renal stone in Hong Kong, and awareness of corresponding prevention strategies. Design: Telephone public survey. Setting: Hong Kong community. Participants: A public telephone survey concerning the occurrence of renal stone disease and the public awareness of the condition was performed. Respondents whose telephone numbers were randomly selected by computer and the family member of the household who had the closest birthday to that date was chosen for interview. Data collected were further adjusted for the gender and age distribution of the Hong Kong population in mid-2007. Results: A total of 1010 Hong Kong citizens aged 18 years or above were successfully interviewed in November 2007. Among them, 25 respondents themselves had a history of renal stones, yielding a point prevalence of 2.5%. In addition, 70 respondents had family members with a history of renal stones, yielding an estimated household point prevalence of 6.9%. Stone patients were mainly older, male, and imbibed less fluids than the average for all respondents. The public's concepts with regard to the diet necessary and the importance of taking more fluid to prevent stone formation was poor. Conclusion: Hong Kong has a relatively low prevalence of renal stone disease, compared to neighbouring areas. However, the local public and affected patients had little knowledge and awareness about this important health problem.published_or_final_versio

PolyFit: Polynomial-based Indexing Approach for Fast Approximate Range Aggregate Queries

Range aggregate queries find frequent application in data analytics. In some use cases, approximate results are preferred over accurate results if they can be computed rapidly and satisfy approximation guarantees. Inspired by a recent indexing approach, we provide means of representing a discrete point data set by continuous functions that can then serve as compact index structures. More specifically, we develop a polynomial-based indexing approach, called PolyFit, for processing approximate range aggregate queries. PolyFit is capable of supporting multiple types of range aggregate queries, including COUNT, SUM, MIN and MAX aggregates, with guaranteed absolute and relative error bounds. Experiment results show that PolyFit is faster and more accurate and compact than existing learned index structures.Comment: 13 page

Deep learning based real-time facial mask detection and crowd monitoring

During the Covid pandemic, the importance of wearing mask has been noted globally. Additionally, crowded human clusters facilitated the transmission of the virus, which brings up the need for new systems for monitoring such situations. To address such issues, this research proposes an object recognition visual system based on deep learning to monitor the wearing of masks in a certain space and the control of the number of people indoors as an important tool during an epidemic. This research mainly investigates two types of identification. The first is to monitor whether people entering the site wear a mask at the entrance and exit of the field, and the second is to count the number of people entering a specific area. Experimental results show that by utilising the visual sensor, it is possible to detect and identify the people who frequently enter and exit in real-time. An advanced transfer learning approach has been employed to achieve the best discrimination performance. The actual training results prove that the migration learning Mask R-CNN algorithm produced by this method and the original Mask R-CNN algorithm have increased the mAP by 3%, reaching a mAP of 96%. In addition, the accuracy of the random sampling and identification in actual scenes has reached 92.1%. The developed deep learning vision system has an enhanced identification ability for the verification and analysis of actual scenes and has great application potential

Trust as a mediator in the relationship between childhood sexual abuse and IL-6 level in adulthood

Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) has been shown to predict the coupling of depression and inflammation in adulthood. Trust within intimate relationships, a core element in marital relations, has been shown to predict positive physical and mental health outcomes, but the mediating role of trust in partners in the association between CSA and inflammation in adulthood requires further study. The present study aimed to examine the impact of CSA on inflammatory biomarkers (IL-6 and IL-1β) in adults with depression and the mediating role of trust. A cross-sectional survey data set of adults presenting with mood and sleep disturbance was used in the analysis. CSA demonstrated a significant negative correlation with IL-6 level (r = -0.28, p<0. 01) in adults with clinically significant depression, while trust showed a significant positive correlation with IL-6 level (r = 0.36, p < .01). Sobel test and bootstrapping revealed a significant mediating role for trust between CSA and IL-6 level. CSA and trust in partners were revealed to have significant associations with IL-6 level in adulthood. Counterintuitively, the directions of association were not those expected. Trust played a mediating role between CSA and adulthood levels of IL-6. Plausible explanations for these counterintuitive findings are discussed

EDN1 Lys198Asn is Associated with Diabetic Retinopathy in Type 2 Diabetes

Purpose: We tested the hypothesis that genetic variants in vasoactive and angiogenic factors regulating the retina vasculature contribute to the development of diabetic retinopathy (DR). Methods: A case-control study was performed to study the genetic association between DR and polymorphic variants of EDN1 (Lys198Asn), LTA (IVS1–80C>A, IVS1–206G>C, IVS1–252>G), eNOS (Glu298Asp), and ITGA2 (BgI II) in a Chinese population with type 2 diabetes mellitus. A well defined population with type 2 diabetes, consisting of 127 controls and 216 DR patients, was recruited. Results: A higher frequency of the Asn/Asn genotype of EDN1 was found in individuals with at least 10 years of diabetes and no retinopathy (controls) compared with DR patients with any duration of diabetes (DR: 2.3%; control: 11.0%; p=0.0002). The Asn allele was also more frequent in controls than DR patients (DR: 16.4%; control: 29.5%; p=0.007). Multiple logistic regression analysis showed that the Asn/Asn genotype was the factor most significantly associated with reduced risk of DR (odds ratio=0.19; 95% CI: 0.07-0.53; p=0.002) and with late onset of diabetes (Asn/Asn: 59 years; Lys/Lys + Lys/Asn: 53 years; p=0.02). Moreover, the Lys/Lys genotype was more common among patients with nonproliferative (75.7%) than proliferative DR (56.9%; p=0.008). The distributions of Lys198Asn alleles in hypertension did not differ from normotensive subjects. No associations between DR and polymorphisms of LTA, eNOS, or ITGA2 were detected, and there were no detectable gene-gene or gene-environmental interactions among the polymorphisms.Conclusions The Asn/Asn genotype of EDN1 was associated with a reduced risk of DR and with delayed onset of type 2 diabetes

Use of switching barriers to retain customers: Online retail stock traders in Hong Kong

Why some customers decide to stay withexisting service provider after having thought of switchinghas apparently not been examined adequately in extantresearch. The purpose of this research is to identifyfactors relevant to building constructs to representswitching barriers in online retail stock trading industryin Hong Kong. Review of extant literature, development ofa questionnaire and focus group interviews are the threeprincipal methods used for this research. Four factors thatare relevant for measuring switching barriers areidentified: two positive barriers involve service recoveryand trust and two negative barriers relate to higherswitching costs and lack of attractive alternatives

Comparative Outcomes Between Direct Oral Anticoagulants, Warfarin, and Antiplatelet Monotherapy Among Chinese Patients With Atrial Fibrillation: A Population-Based Cohort Study

Introduction: Outcomes associated with suboptimal use of antithrombotic treatments (antiplatelets, warfarin, direct oral anticoagulants [DOACs]) are unclear in Chinese patients with atrial fibrillation (AF). Objectives: Our objective was to assess the prescription patterns, quality, effectiveness, and safety of antithrombotic treatments. Methods: This was a population-based cohort study using electronic health records in Hong Kong. Patients newly diagnosed with AF during 2010–2016 were followed up until 2017. Patients at high stroke risk (CHA2DS2-VASc score ≥ 2) and receiving antithrombotic treatments were matched using propensity scoring. We used Cox proportional hazards regression to compare the risks of ischemic stroke, intracranial hemorrhage (ICH), gastrointestinal bleeding (GIB), and all-cause mortality between groups. Results: Of the 52,178 high-risk patients with AF, 27,614 (52.9%) received antithrombotic treatment and were included in the analyses. Between 2010 and 2016, prescribing of antiplatelets and warfarin declined and that of DOACs increased dramatically (from 1 to 32%). Two-thirds of warfarin users experienced poor anticoagulation control. Warfarin and DOACs were associated with lower risks of ischemic stroke (warfarin, hazard ratio [HR] 0.51 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.36–0.71]; DOACs, HR 0.69 [95% CI 0.51–0.94]) and all-cause mortality (warfarin, HR 0.47 [95% CI 0.39–0.57]; DOACs, HR 0.45 [95% CI 0.37–0.55]) than were antiplatelets. DOACs were associated with a lower risk of ICH than was warfarin (HR 0.53 [95% CI 0.34–0.83]). GIB risks were similar among all groups. Conclusion: Antiplatelet prescribing and suboptimal warfarin management remain common in Chinese patients with AF at high risk of stroke. DOAC use may be associated with a lower risk of ischemic stroke and all-cause mortality when compared with antiplatelets and with a lower risk of ICH when compared with warfarin