Biomarkers of environmental tobacco smoke exposure.

Biomarkers are desirable for quantitating human exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) and for predicting potential health risks for exposed individuals. A number of biomarkers of ETS have been proposed. At present cotinine, measured in blood, saliva, or urine, appears to be the most specific and the most sensitive biomarker. In nonsmokers with significant exposure to ETS, cotinine levels in the body are derived primarily from tobacco smoke, can be measured with extremely high sensitivity, and reflect exposure to a variety of types of cigarettes independent of machine-determined yield. Under conditions of sustained exposure to ETS (i.e., over hours or days), cotinine levels reflect exposure to other components of ETS. Supporting the validity of cotinine as a biomarker, cotinine levels have been positively correlated to the risks of some ETS-related health complications in children who are not cigarette smokers

Dietary heavy metal exposure of Finnish 1-year-olds

The exposure of Finnish 1-year-olds to cadmium, lead and inorganic arsenic via food and drinking water was determined. The food consumption data consisted of 3-day records from 1010 children aged 12 months, collected during 2002 to 2005 in Southwest Finland. One fifth of these children were still breastfed when the consumption data were collected and their exposure was assessed separately from the non-breastfed children. The heavy metal concentration data in foodstuffs were mainly analysis results from national authorities and they were mostly from the years 2005 to 2012. Dietary exposure assessment was performed probabilistically using the online program MCRA. With middle bound estimates, 89% of the non-breastfed and 56% of the breastfed children exceeded the tolerable weekly intake of cadmium. The benchmark dose (BMDL01) for neurological damage caused by lead was exceeded by 60% of the non-breastfed and by 50% of the breastfed children, while the lowest BMDL01 for cancer risk increase caused by inorganic arsenic was exceeded by 77% of the non-breastfed and by 61% of the breastfed children. The assessment did not include the unknown heavy metal exposure from breast milk. Heavy metal exposure differences between the boys and the girls were also assessed. Breastfed girls had significantly higher heavy metal exposure relative to their bodyweight than the breastfed boys, while in the non-breastfed group there were no differences by sex

SARS-CoV-2 Viral Load in Saliva Rises Gradually and to Moderate Levels in Some Humans

Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in community settings often occurs before symptom onset, therefore testing strategies that can reliably detect people in the early phase of infection are urgently needed. Early detection of SARS-CoV-2 infection is especially critical to protect vulnerable populations who require frequent interactions with caretakers. Rapid COVID-19 tests have been proposed as an attractive strategy for surveillance, however a limitation of most rapid tests is their low sensitivity. Low-sensitivity tests are comparable to high sensitivity tests in detecting early infections when two assumptions are met: (1) viral load rises quickly (within hours) after infection and (2) viral load reaches and sustains high levels (>10⁵ - 10⁶ RNA copies/mL). However, there are no human data testing these assumptions. In this study, we document a case of presymptomatic household transmission from a healthy college student to his brother and father. Participants prospectively provided twice-daily saliva samples. Samples were analyzed by RT-qPCR and RT-ddPCR and we measured the complete viral load profiles throughout the course of infection of the brother and father. This study provides evidence that in at least some human cases of SARS-CoV-2, viral load rises slowly (over days, not hours) and not to such high levels to be detectable reliably by any low-sensitivity test. Additional viral load profiles from different samples types across a broad demographic must be obtained to describe the early phase of infection and determine which testing strategies will be most effective for identifying SARS-CoV-2 infection before transmission can occur

Service Robots in the Hospitality Industry: An Exploratory Literature Review

The service sector is changing drastically due the use of robotics and other technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of things (IoT), Big Data and Biometrics. Consequently, further research opportunities in the service industry domain are also expected. In light of the above, the purpose of this paper is to explore the potentialities and limitations of service robots in the hospitality industry. To this end, this paper uses a conceptual approach based on a literature review. As a result, we found that in contexts of high customer contact, service robots should be considered to perform standardized tasks due to social/emotional and cognitive/analytical complexity. The hospitality industry is therefore considered closely related to empathic intelligence, as the integration of service robots has not yet reached the desired stage of service delivery. In a seemingly far-fetched context of our reality, organizations will have to decide whether the AI will allow the complete replacement of humans with robots capable of performing the necessary cognitive and emotional tasks. Or investing in balanced capacities by integrating robot-human systems that seems a reasonable option these days.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A systematic review of attitudes, anxiety, acceptance, and trust towards social robots

As social robots become more common, there is a need to understand how people perceive and interact with such technology. This systematic review seeks to estimate people’s attitudes toward, trust in, anxiety associated with, and acceptance of social robots; as well as factors that are associated with these beliefs. Ninety-seven studies were identified with a combined sample of over 13,000 participants and a standardized score was computed for each in order to represent the valence (positive, negative, or neutral) and magnitude (on a scale from 1 to − 1) of people’s beliefs about robots. Potential moderating factors such as the robots’ domain of application and design, the type of exposure to the robot, and the characteristics of potential users were also investigated. The findings suggest that people generally have positive attitudes towards social robots and are willing to interact with them. This finding may challenge some of the existing doubt surrounding the adoption of robotics in social domains of application but more research is needed to fully understand the factors that influence attitudes

Framingham cardiovascular disease risk scores and incident frailty:the English longitudinal study of ageing

Cross-sectional studies show that frailty is common in older people with cardiovascular disease. Whether older people at higher risk of developing cardiovascular disease are more likely to become frail is unclear. We used multinomial logistic regression to examine the prospective relation between Framingham cardiovascular disease risk scores and incidence of physical frailty or pre-frailty, defined according to the Fried criteria, in 1,726 men and women aged 60 to over 90 years from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing who had no history of cardiovascular disease at baseline. Men and women with higher Framingham cardiovascular risk scores were more likely to become frail over the 4-year follow-up period. For a standard deviation higher score at baseline, the relative risk ratio (95 % confidence interval) for incident frailty, adjusted for sex and baseline frailty status, was 2.76 (2.18, 3.49). There was a significant association between Framingham cardiovascular risk score and risk of pre-frailty: 1.69 (1.46, 1.95). After further adjustment for other potential confounding factors, the relative risk ratios for frailty and pre-frailty were 2.15 (1.68, 2.75) and 1.50 (1.29, 1.74), respectively. The associations were unchanged after excluding incident cases of cardiovascular disease. Separate adjustment for each component of the risk score suggested that no single component was driving the associations between cardiovascular risk score and incident pre-frailty or frailty. Framingham cardiovascular risk scores may be useful for predicting the development of physical frailty in older people. We now need to understand the biological mechanisms whereby cardiovascular risk increases the risk of frailty