The effect of cigarette price increase on the cigarette consumption in Taiwan: evidence from the National Health Interview Surveys on cigarette consumption

BACKGROUND: This study uses cigarette price elasticity to evaluate the effect of a new excise tax increase on cigarette consumption and to investigate responses from various types of smokers. METHODS: Our sample consisted of current smokers between 17 and 69 years old interviewed during an annual face-to-face survey conducted by Taiwan National Health Research Institutes between 2000 to 2003. We used Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) procedure to estimate double logarithmic function of cigarette demand and cigarette price elasticity. RESULTS: In 2002, after Taiwan had enacted the new tax scheme, cigarette price elasticity in Taiwan was found to be -0.5274. The new tax scheme brought about an average annual 13.27 packs/person (10.5%) reduction in cigarette consumption. Using the cigarette price elasticity estimate from -0.309 in 2003, we calculated that if the Health and Welfare Tax were increased by another NT$ 3 per pack and cigarette producers shifted this increase to the consumers, cigarette consumption would be reduced by 2.47 packs/person (2.2%). The value of the estimated cigarette price elasticity is smaller than one, meaning that the tax will not only reduce cigarette consumption but it will also generate additional tax revenues. Male smokers who had no income or who smoked light cigarettes were found to be more responsive to changes in cigarette price. CONCLUSIONS: An additional tax added to the cost of cigarettes would bring about a reduction in cigarette consumption and increased tax revenues. It would also help reduce incidents smoking-related illnesses. The additional tax revenues generated by the tax increase could be used to offset the current financial deficiency of Taiwan's National Health Insurance program and provide better public services

Long-term ambient hydrocarbons exposure and incidence of ischemic stroke.

Exposure to air pollutants is known to have adverse effects on human health; however, little is known about the association between hydrocarbons in air and an ischemic stroke (IS) event. We investigated whether long-term exposure to airborne hydrocarbons, including volatile organic compounds, increased IS risk. This retrospective cohort study included 283,666 people aged 40 years or older in Taiwan. Cox proportional hazards regression analysis was used to fit single- and multiple-pollutant models for two targeted pollutants, total hydrocarbons (THC) and nonmethane hydrocarbons (NMHC), and estimated the risk of IS. Before controlling for multiple pollutants, hazard ratios (HRs) of IS with 95% confidence intervals for the overall population were 2.69 (2.64-2.74) at 0.16-ppm increase in THC and 1.62 (1.59-1.66) at 0.11-ppm increase in NMHC. For the multiple-pollutant models controlling for PM2.5, the adjusted HR was 3.64 (3.56-3.72) for THC and 2.21 (2.16-2.26) for NMHC. Our findings suggest that long-term exposure to THC and NMHC may be a risk factor for IS development

Oral immunization of haemaggulutinin H5 expressed in plant endoplasmic reticulum with adjuvant saponin protects mice against highly pathogenic avian influenza A virus infection

Pandemics in poultry caused by the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) A virus occur too frequently globally, and there is growing concern about the HPAI A virus due to the possibility of a pandemic among humans. Thus, it is important to develop a vaccine against HPAI suitable for both humans and animals. Various approaches are underway to develop such vaccines. In particular, an edible vaccine would be a convenient way to vaccinate poultry because of the behaviour of the animals. However, an edible vaccine is still not available. In this study, we developed a strategy of effective vaccination of mice by the oral administration of transgenic Arabidopsis plants (HA-TG) expressing haemagglutinin (HA) in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Expression of HA in the ER resulted in its high-level accumulation, N-glycosylation, protection from proteolytic degradation and long-term stability. Oral administration of HA-TG with saponin elicited high levels of HA-specific systemic IgG and mucosal IgA responses in mice, which resulted in protection against a lethal influenza virus infection with attenuated inflammatory symptoms. Based on these results, we propose that oral administration of freeze-dried leaf powders from transgenic plants expressing HA in the ER together with saponin is an attractive strategy for vaccination against influenza A virus.X111411Ysciescopu

Does the `Higgs' have Spin Zero?

The Higgs boson is predicted to have spin zero. The ATLAS and CMS experiments have recently reported of an excess of events with mass ~ 125 GeV that has some of the characteristics expected for a Higgs boson. We address the questions whether there is already any evidence that this excess has spin zero, and how this possibility could be confirmed in the near future. The excess observed in the gamma gamma final state could not have spin one, leaving zero and two as open possibilities. We calculate the angular distribution of gamma gamma pairs from the decays of a spin-two boson produced in gluon-gluon collisions, showing that is unique and distinct from the spin-zero case. We also calculate the distributions for lepton pairs that would be produced in the W W* decays of a spin-two boson, which are very different from those in Higgs decays, and note that the kinematics of the event selection used to produce the excess observed in the W W* final state have reduced efficiency for spin two.Comment: 22 pages, 22 figures, Version accepted for publication in JHEP, includes additional plots of dilepton mass distribution

Anti-Allergic Cromones Inhibit Histamine and Eicosanoid Release from Activated Human and Murine Mast Cells by Releasing Annexin A1

PMCID: PMC3601088This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Adult mortality of diseases and injuries attributable to selected metabolic, lifestyle, environmental, and infectious risk factors in Taiwan: A comparative risk assessment

Background: To facilitate priority-setting in health policymaking, we compiled the best available information to estimate the adult mortality (>30 years) burden attributable to 13 metabolic, lifestyle, infectious, and environmental risk factors in Taiwan. Methods: We obtained data on risk factor exposure from nationally representative health surveys, cause-specific mortality from the National Death Registry, and relative risks from epidemiological studies and meta-analyses. We applied the comparative risk assessment framework to estimate mortality burden attributable to individual risk factors or risk factor clusters. Results: In 2009, high blood glucose accounted for 14,900 deaths (95% UI: 11,850-17,960), or 10.4% of all deaths in that year. It was followed by tobacco smoking (13,340 deaths, 95% UI: 10,330-16,450), high blood pressure (11,190 deaths, 95% UI: 8,190-14,190), ambient particulate matter pollution (8,600 deaths, 95% UI: 7,370-9,840), and dietary risks (high sodium intake and low intake of fruits and vegetables, 7,890 deaths, 95% UI: 5,970-9,810). Overweight-obesity and physical inactivity accounted for 7,620 deaths (95% UI: 6,040-9,190), and 7,400 deaths (95% UI: 6,670-8,130), respectively. The cardiometabolic risk factors of high blood pressure, high blood glucose, high cholesterol, and overweight-obesity jointly accounted for 12,120 deaths (95% UI: 11,220-13,020) from cardiovascular diseases. For domestic risk factors, infections from hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) were responsible for 6,300 deaths (95% UI: 5,610-6,980) and 3,170 deaths (95% UI: 1,860-4,490), respectively, and betel nut use was associated with 1,780 deaths from oral, laryngeal, and esophageal cancer (95% UI: 1,190-2,360). The leading risk factors for years of life lost were similar, but the impact of tobacco smoking and alcohol use became larger because the attributable deaths from these risk factors occurred among young adults aged less than 60 years. Conclusions: High blood glucose, tobacco smoking, and high blood pressure are the major risk factors for deaths from diseases and injuries among Taiwanese adults. A large number of years of life would be gained if the 13 modifiable risk factors could be removed or reduced to the optimal level

Geometric morphometrics reveals shifts in flower shape symmetry and size following gene knockdown of CYCLOIDEA and ANTHOCYANIDIN SYNTHASE

Peer reviewe

Towards barcode markers in Fungi: an intron map of Ascomycota mitochondria

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>A standardized and cost-effective molecular identification system is now an urgent need for Fungi owing to their wide involvement in human life quality. In particular the potential use of mitochondrial DNA species markers has been taken in account. Unfortunately, a serious difficulty in the PCR and bioinformatic surveys is due to the presence of mobile introns in almost all the fungal mitochondrial genes. The aim of this work is to verify the incidence of this phenomenon in Ascomycota, testing, at the same time, a new bioinformatic tool for extracting and managing sequence databases annotations, in order to identify the mitochondrial gene regions where introns are missing so as to propose them as species markers.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The general trend towards a large occurrence of introns in the mitochondrial genome of Fungi has been confirmed in Ascomycota by an extensive bioinformatic analysis, performed on all the entries concerning 11 mitochondrial protein coding genes and 2 mitochondrial rRNA (ribosomal RNA) specifying genes, belonging to this phylum, available in public nucleotide sequence databases. A new query approach has been developed to retrieve effectively introns information included in these entries.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>After comparing the new query-based approach with a blast-based procedure, with the aim of designing a faithful Ascomycota mitochondrial intron map, the first method appeared clearly the most accurate. Within this map, despite the large pervasiveness of introns, it is possible to distinguish specific regions comprised in several genes, including the full NADH dehydrogenase subunit 6 (ND6) gene, which could be considered as barcode candidates for Ascomycota due to their paucity of introns and to their length, above 400 bp, comparable to the lower end size of the length range of barcodes successfully used in animals.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The development of the new query system described here would answer the pressing requirement to improve drastically the bioinformatics support to the DNA Barcode Initiative. The large scale investigation of Ascomycota mitochondrial introns performed through this tool, allowing to exclude the introns-rich sequences from the barcode candidates exploration, could be the first step towards a mitochondrial barcoding strategy for these organisms, similar to the standard approach employed in metazoans.</p