The tobacco industry in South Korea since market liberalisation : implications for strengthening tobacco control

This research analyses transnational tobacco companies' (TTCs) broader strategies for market access and demand creation through understanding market liberalisation in South Korea's tobacco industry from the late 1980s in order to inform the strengthening of tobacco control policies within the country and other emerging markets. The research is mainly based on internal tobacco industry documents, made publicly available through litigation. Detailed analysis of industry documents related to South Korea has not been undertaken to date. Semistructured interviews and additional primary and secondary sources served as important supplementary data sources. The key finding of this research is that the market access strategies of TTCs, including direct and indirect lobbying on trade policies, were a response to South Korea's export-oriented economic development model and its negative attitude towards foreign investment. This was undertaken within the context of the transformation of the world trading system from the 1980s which created pressure on the country to open its market. After liberalisation, various aggressive marketing tactics to create demand for foreign brands were used by TTCs. The competition this engendered played a key role in the transformation of the Korean tobacco monopoly into a private, competitive business which emulated and refined the tactics used by TTCs. This, in turn, increased the extent and intensity of the aggressive marketing of tobacco products in Korea overall. Total volume of cigarette sales increased 25% as a result, making Korea the 8th largest tobacco market in the world by 1992, whilst smoking prevalence increased among young adults and females. The research concludes that a fuller understanding of TTCs' strategies for global expansion can be derived by locating them within the economic development models of specific countries or regions. Such analysis, in turn, offers important lessons for strengthening global tobacco control. Of foremost importance is the need for emerging markets to appropriately balance economic and public health policies when considering liberalisation. The South Korean experience also demonstrates that comprehensive tobacco control policies, as set out by the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, must be implemented prior to any market liberalisation and strictly enforced within a competitive market environment

Differentially Private Multivariate Statistics with an Application to Contingency Table Analysis

Differential privacy (DP) has become a rigorous central concept in privacy protection for the past decade. Among various notions of DP, $f$-DP is an easily interpretable and informative concept that tightly captures privacy level by comparing trade-off functions obtained from the hypothetical test of how well the mechanism recognizes individual information in the dataset. We adopt the Gaussian differential privacy (GDP), a canonical parametric family of $f$-DP. The Gaussian mechanism is a natural and fundamental mechanism that tightly achieves GDP. However, the ordinary multivariate Gaussian mechanism is not optimal with respect to statistical utility. To improve the utility, we develop the rank-deficient and James-Stein Gaussian mechanisms for releasing private multivariate statistics based on the geometry of multivariate Gaussian distribution. We show that our proposals satisfy GDP and dominate the ordinary Gaussian mechanism with respect to $L_2$-cost. We also show that the Laplace mechanism, a prime mechanism in $\varepsilon$-DP framework, is sub-optimal than Gaussian-type mechanisms under the framework of GDP. For a fair comparison, we calibrate the Laplace mechanism to the global sensitivity of the statistic with the exact approach to the trade-off function. We also develop the optimal parameter for the Laplace mechanism when applied to contingency tables. Indeed, we show that the Gaussian-type mechanisms dominate the Laplace mechanism in contingency table analysis. In addition, we apply our findings to propose differentially private $\chi^2$-tests on contingency tables. Numerical results demonstrate that differentially private parametric bootstrap tests control the type I error rates and show higher power than other natural competitors

Cardiogenic shock

Cardiogenic shock is an acute circulatory failure due to compromised myocardial contractility associated with congenital heart diseases and cardiomyopathies, such as myocarditis. In this article, the authors present a 3-step overview of cardiogenic shock diagnosis and management to restore tissue oxygen delivery. The first step is early recognition of nonspecific signs of the shock. The second step is medical management, monitoring, and repeated assessment. In addition to conventional parameters, biomarkers may be useful to monitor the shock. The final step is mechanical circulatory support, such as ventricular assist devices, for children with the refractory shock. We also briefly describe the shock in multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children with coronavirus disease 2019

Public Health Challenges of Electronic Cigarettes in South Korea

Electronic cigarettes (e-cigarrettes) were recently introduced and advertised as a smoking cession device in South Korea. As the social norm to quit smoking has gained hold in the country, the number of e-cigarette users is growing rapidly. This phenomenon should be urgently considered, because of the lack of research that has been conducted to examine the safety of e-cigarettes and its efficacy as a smoking cessation aid

Realizing the Heteromorphic Superlattice: Repeated Heterolayers of Amorphous Insulator and Polycrystalline Semiconductor with Minimal Interface Defects

An Unconventional Heteromorphic Superlattice (HSL) is Realized, Comprised of Repeated Layers of Different Materials with Differing Morphologies: Semiconducting Pc-In2O3 Layers Interleaved with Insulating A-MoO3 Layers. Originally Proposed by Tsu in 1989, Yet Never Fully Realized, the High Quality of the HSL Heterostructure Demonstrated Here Validates the Intuition of Tsu, Whereby the Flexibility of the Bond Angle in the Amorphous Phase and the Passivation Effect of the Oxide at Interfacial Bonds Serve to Create Smooth, High-Mobility Interfaces. the Alternating Amorphous Layers Prevent Strain Accumulation in the Polycrystalline Layers While Suppressing Defect Propagation Across the HSL. for the HSL with 7:7 Nm Layer Thickness, the Observed Electron Mobility of 71 Cm2 Vs-1, Matches that of the Highest Quality In2O3 Thin Films. the Atomic Structure and Electronic Properties of Crystalline In2O3/amorphous MoO3 Interfaces Are Verified using Ab-Initio Molecular Dynamics Simulations and Hybrid Functional Calculations. This Work Generalizes the Superlattice Concept to an Entirely New Paradigm of Morphological Combinations