Assessment of public health impact of work-related asthma

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Asthma is among the most common chronic diseases in working-aged populations and occupational exposures are important causal agents. Our aims were to evaluate the best methods to assess occurrence, public health impact, and burden to society related to occupational or work-related asthma and to achieve comparable estimates for different populations.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We addressed three central questions: <b>1: What is the best method to assess the occurrence of occupational asthma? </b>We evaluated: 1) assessment of the occurrence of occupational asthma <it>per se</it>, and 2) assessment of adult-onset asthma and the population attributable fractions due to specific occupational exposures. <b>2: What are the best methods to assess public health impact and burden to society related to occupational or work-related asthma? </b>We evaluated methods based on assessment of excess burden of disease due to specific occupational exposures. <b>3: How to achieve comparable estimates for different populations? </b>We evaluated comparability of estimates of occurrence and burden attributable to occupational asthma based on different methods.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Assessment of the occurrence of occupational asthma <it>per se </it>can be used in countries with good coverage of the identification system for occupational asthma, i.e. countries with well-functioning occupational health services. Assessment based on adult-onset asthma and population attributable fractions due to specific occupational exposures is a good approach to estimate the occurrence of occupational asthma at the population level. For assessment of public health impact from work-related asthma we recommend assessing excess burden of disease due to specific occupational exposures, including excess incidence of asthma complemented by an assessment of disability from it. International comparability of estimates can be best achieved by methods based on population attributable fractions.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Public health impact assessment for occupational asthma is central in prevention and health policy planning and could be improved by purposeful development of methods for assessing health benefits from preventive actions. Registry-based methods are suitable for evaluating time-trends of occurrence at a given population but for international comparisons they face serious limitations. Assessment of excess burden of disease due to specific occupational exposure is a useful measure, when there is valid information on population exposure and attributable fractions.</p

Respiratory Infections Precede Adult-Onset Asthma

BACKGROUND: Respiratory infections in early life are associated with an increased risk of developing asthma but there is little evidence on the role of infections for onset of asthma in adults. The objective of this study was to assess the relation of the occurrence of respiratory infections in the past 12 months to adult-onset asthma in a population-based incident case-control study of adults 21-63 years of age. METHODS/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We recruited all new clinically diagnosed cases of asthma (n = 521) during a 2.5-year study period and randomly selected controls (n = 932) in a geographically defined area in South Finland. Information on respiratory infections was collected by a self-administered questionnaire. The diagnosis of asthma was based on symptoms and reversible airflow obstruction in lung function measurements. The risk of asthma onset was strongly increased in subjects who had experienced in the preceding 12 months lower respiratory tract infections (including acute bronchitis and pneumonia) with an adjusted odds ratio (OR) 7.18 (95% confidence interval [CI] 5.16-9.99), or upper respiratory tract infections (including common cold, sinusitis, tonsillitis, and otitis media) with an adjusted OR 2.26 (95% CI 1.72-2.97). Individuals with personal atopy and/or parental atopy were more susceptible to the effects of respiratory infections on asthma onset than non-atopic persons. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: This study provides new evidence that recently experienced respiratory infections are a strong determinant for adult-onset asthma. Reducing such infections might prevent onset of asthma in adulthood, especially in individuals with atopy or hereditary propensity to it

Experimental Evidence for Efimov Quantum States

Three interacting particles form a system which is well known for its complex physical behavior. A landmark theoretical result in few-body quantum physics is Efimov's prediction of a universal set of weakly bound trimer states appearing for three identical bosons with a resonant two-body interaction. Surprisingly, these states even exist in the absence of a corresponding two-body bound state and their precise nature is largely independent of the particular type of the two-body interaction potential. Efimov's scenario has attracted great interest in many areas of physics; an experimental test however has not been achieved. We report the observation of an Efimov resonance in an ultracold thermal gas of cesium atoms. The resonance occurs in the range of large negative two-body scattering lengths and arises from the coupling of three free atoms to an Efimov trimer. We observe its signature as a giant three-body recombination loss when the strength of the two-body interaction is varied near a Feshbach resonance. This resonance develops into a continuum resonance at non-zero collision energies, and we observe a shift of the resonance position as a function of temperature. We also report on a minimum in the recombination loss for positive scattering lengths, indicating destructive interference of decay pathways. Our results confirm central theoretical predictions of Efimov physics and represent a starting point from which to explore the universal properties of resonantly interacting few-body systems.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, Proceedings of ICAP-2006 (Innsbruck

Fresh perspectives on customer experience

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide directions for future research on: broadening the role of customers in customer experience; taking a practice-based approach to customer experience; and recognizing the holistic, dynamic nature of customer experience across all touch points and over time. Design/methodology/approach – The approach is conceptual identifying current gaps in research on customer experience. Findings – The findings include a set of research questions and research agenda for future research on customer experience. Originality/value – This research suggests fresh perspectives for understanding the customer experience which can inspire future research and advance theory and managerial practice

Breastfeeding and childhood asthma: a six-year population-based cohort study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The question of the protective effect of breastfeeding on development of asthma has raised substantial interest, but the scientific evidence of the optimal duration of breastfeeding is controversial.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The authors elaborated the optimal duration of breastfeeding with respect to the risk of asthma primarily, and secondarily to the risk of persistent wheezing, cough and phlegm in school age in a population-based cohort study with the baseline in 1991 and follow-up in 1997. The study population comprised 1984 children aged 7 to 14 years at the end of the follow-up (follow-up rate 77). Information on breastfeeding was based on the baseline survey and information on the health outcomes at the follow-up.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>There was a U-shaped relation between breastfeeding and the outcomes with the lowest risk with breastfeeding from four to nine months for asthma and seven to nine months for persistent wheezing, cough and phlegm.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our results suggest a U shape relation between duration of breastfeeding and risk of asthma with an optimal duration of 4 to 6 months. A true concave relation would explain the inconsistent results from the previous studies.</p

Ihmisen perustunnetilojen tulkinta ja hyödyntäminen sosiaalisissa roboteissa

Tiivistelmä. Tietotekniikan kehittyessä tekoälyn ja robottien käyttö on moninkertaistunut monilla eri teollisuuden- ja tekniikan aloilla. Ihmisen tärkeintä aistia, näkökykyä, hyödynnetään robotiikassa keinotekoisen näön, eli konenäön toteuttamisessa. Koska sosiaaliset robotit yleistyvät, on tärkeää, että ihmisen ja robotin vuorovaikutus on mahdollisimman luontevaa. Tällöin varsinaisen näkökyvyn lisäksi kasvojen ilmeet ja niiden tulkinta ovat keskeisessä asemassa, jotta robotti pystyy tulkitsemaan ihmistä oikein. Tässä projektissa toteutettiin kasvojen perustunnetilojen tulkitseminen InMoov-robotin robottipään avulla, jonka 3d-mallit ovat vapaasti saatavilla. Robotti ohjelmoitiin tunnistamaan ihmisen kasvot sen silmässä olevalla web-kameralla ja tulkitsemaan kasvoista perustunnetiloja: neutraali, iloinen, vihainen, hämmästynyt, surullinen ja pelko. Tunteen tunnistamisen jälkeen robotti reagoi eri tunteisiin eri liikkeellä. Järjestelmän toteuttamisessa käytettiin pääasiassa OpenCV-ohjelmistokirjastoa konenäön toteuttamiseen, Tensorflow-koneoppimisalustan korkean tason ohjelmointirajapintaa Kerasta tunteen tunnistamiseen ja Robot Operating Systemiä järjestelmän ytimenä ja itse robotin pään liikkeiden ohjaamiseen. Kuviin perustuvista lähestymistavoista käytettiin neuroverkkoja, jotka syväoppimisen kautta opetettiin tunnistamaan kasvojen tunneilmaisuja kuvasta opetusdatan pohjalta. Tulokseksi projektissa saatiin järjestelmä, joka pystyi tunnistamaan käytetyissä olosuhteissa tunteita varsin hyvin.Detection and use of human basic emotions in social robots. Abstract. As computer science is developing the usage of artificial intelligence and robots has multiplied in several fields of industry and technology. The most important sensor of humans, vision, is utilized in robotics in the implementation of artificial vision, i.e. machine vision. As social robots become more common it is essential for human-robot interaction to be as natural as possible. In this case, in addition to vision facial expressions and their interpretation are vital components for fluent interaction. In this project, the interpretation of basic human facial expressions was implemented using the InMoov-robot head, the 3d-models of which are distributed freely. The system was programmed to recognize the facial expressions of a human in front of a webcam and identify some basic emotions, namely neutral, happy, angry, surprised, sad and fear and react differently to each emotion. The system was created using these main components: OpenCV library for machine vision, Keras, a high-level Application Programming Interface for the Tensorflow machine learning platform, for recognizing emotions and Robot Operating System as a core for running the whole system and controlling the robot head. The project explored neural networks function based on deep learning. Neural networks were trained to recognize emotions from facial expression images. The result of the project was a system capable of recognizing facial expressions quite well considering the challenges of the subject

A Geometric Variational Approach to Bayesian Inference

We propose a novel Riemannian geometric framework for variational inference in Bayesian models based on the nonparametric Fisher-Rao metric on the manifold of probability density functions. Under the square-root density representation, the manifold can be identified with the positive orthant of the unit hypersphere in L2, and the Fisher-Rao metric reduces to the standard L2 metric. Exploiting such a Riemannian structure, we formulate the task of approximating the posterior distribution as a variational problem on the hypersphere based on the alpha-divergence. This provides a tighter lower bound on the marginal distribution when compared to, and a corresponding upper bound unavailable with, approaches based on the Kullback-Leibler divergence. We propose a novel gradient-based algorithm for the variational problem based on Frechet derivative operators motivated by the geometry of the Hilbert sphere, and examine its properties. Through simulations and real-data applications, we demonstrate the utility of the proposed geometric framework and algorithm on several Bayesian models

Adsorption and two-body recombination of atomic hydrogen on 3^3He-4^4He mixture films

We present the first systematic measurement of the binding energy $E_a$ of hydrogen atoms to the surface of saturated $^3$He-$^4$He mixture films. $E_a$ is found to decrease almost linearly from 1.14(1) K down to 0.39(1) K, when the population of the ground surface state of $^3$He grows from zero to $6\times10^{14}$ cm$^{-2}$, yielding the value $1.2(1)\times 10^{-15}$ K cm$^2$ for the mean-field parameter of H-$^3$He interaction in 2D. The experiments were carried out with overall $^3$He concentrations ranging from 0.1 ppm to 5 % as well as with commercial and isotopically purified $^4$He at temperatures 70...400 mK. Measuring by ESR the rate constants $K_{aa}$ and $K_{ab}$ for second-order recombination of hydrogen atoms in hyperfine states $a$ and $b$ we find the ratio $K_{ab}/K_{aa}$ to be independent of the $^3$He content and to grow with temperature.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, all zipped in a sigle file. Submitted to Phys. Rev. Let