Environmental tobacco smoke exposure and health disparities: 8-year longitudinal findings from a large cohort of Thai adults

BACKGROUND: In rich countries, smokers, active or passive, often belong to disadvantaged groups. Less is known of tobacco patterns in the developing world. Hence, we seek out to investigate mental and physical health consequences of smoke exposure as well as tobacco-related inequality in transitional middle-income Thailand. METHODS: We studied a nationwide cohort of 87,151 middle-aged and older adults that we have been following for eight years (2005–2013) for emerging chronic diseases. Logistic regression was used to identify attributes associated with passive smoke exposure. Longitudinal associations between smoke exposure and wellbeing (SF-8) or psychological distress (Kessler 6) were investigated with multiple linear regression or multivariate logistic regression analysis. RESULTS: A high proportion of cohort members, especially females, were passive smokers at home and at public transport stations; males were more exposed at workplace and recreational places. We observed a social gradient with more passive smoking in poorer people. We also observed a dose response relationship linking graded smoke exposures (current, former, passive, non-exposed) to less wellbeing and more psychological distress (p-trend < 0.001). Female smokers in general had less wellbeing and more distress. CONCLUSION: Our findings add to current knowledge on the impact of active and passive smoking on health in a transitional economy. Promotion of smoking cessation programs both in public and at home could also potentially reduce adverse disparities in health and wellbeing in middle and lower income settings such as Thailand.This study was supported by the International Collaborative Research Grants Scheme with joint grants from the Wellcome Trust UK (GR071587MA) and the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (268055), and as a global health grant from the NHMRC (585426)

Embedded Content Playback Authorization Using Cryptographically Signed Referrers

When users access embedded content from within third-party services or applications, there is a need for the content provider to verify that the playback originated from an approved third-party service or application. Currently, content providers rely on the easily spoofable HTTP referrer information to check the name of the third-party from which a user is accessing embedded content. This disclosure describes a public key cryptography based simple mechanism for trusted third parties to provide first-party content providers with cryptographically signed referrer information that is non-spoofable and hard to replay. A cryptographic key pair is utilized by the content provider and by the third-party application or service. Requests for playing embedded content that originate from third-party applications are encrypted with the public key of the content provider and signed by the third-party service or application. The techniques enable provision of embedded content playback in third-party apps and allow content providers to ensure that embedded content playback is only available to authorized services and apps

Multi-Person Pose Estimation with Local Joint-to-Person Associations

Despite of the recent success of neural networks for human pose estimation, current approaches are limited to pose estimation of a single person and cannot handle humans in groups or crowds. In this work, we propose a method that estimates the poses of multiple persons in an image in which a person can be occluded by another person or might be truncated. To this end, we consider multi-person pose estimation as a joint-to-person association problem. We construct a fully connected graph from a set of detected joint candidates in an image and resolve the joint-to-person association and outlier detection using integer linear programming. Since solving joint-to-person association jointly for all persons in an image is an NP-hard problem and even approximations are expensive, we solve the problem locally for each person. On the challenging MPII Human Pose Dataset for multiple persons, our approach achieves the accuracy of a state-of-the-art method, but it is 6,000 to 19,000 times faster.Comment: Accepted to European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV) Workshops, Crowd Understanding, 201

Cone-Beam Computed Tomography contrast validation of an artificial periodontal phantom for use in endodontics

International audienceValidation of image processing techniques such as endodontic segmentations in cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) is a challenging issue because of the lack of ground truth in in vivo experiments. The purpose of our study was to design an artificial surrounding tissues phantom able to provide CBCT image quality of real extracted teeth, similar to in vivo conditions. Note that these extracted teeth could be previously scanned using micro computed tomography (μCT) to access true quantitative measurements of the root canal anatomy. Different design settings are assessed in our study by comparison to in vivo images, in terms of the contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) obtained between different anatomical structures. Concerning the root canal and the dentine, the best design setup allowed our phantom to provide a CNR difference of only 3% compared to clinical cases

Berechnung und Messung der Sonnenscheindauer auf beliebigen Dachschrägen

In diesem Artikel werden Aufbau und Durchführung eines Demonstrationsversuchs vorgestellt, mit dem die Sonnenscheindauer für beliebige Orte quantitativ und auf einfache Weise gemessen werden kann. Insbesondere kann durch eine geeignete Erweiterung die Sonnenscheindauer für beliebig ausgerichtete Dachflächen ermittelt werden. So können Lernende selbstständig auf experimentelle Weise die Einflüsse auf die Sonnenscheindauer untersuchen, ohne dabei auf die komplizierte sphärische Geometrie zurückgreifen zu müssen. Die anhand des Versuches gewonnenen Erkenntnisse können schließlich mit theoretischen Berechnungen verglichen werden und liefern sehr gute Übereinstimmungen

Berechnung und Messung der Sonnenscheindauer auf beliebigen Dachschrägen

In diesem Artikel werden Aufbau und Durchführung eines Demonstrationsversuchs vorgestellt, mit dem die Sonnenscheindauer für beliebige Orte quantitativ und auf einfache Weise gemessen werden kann. Insbesondere kann durch eine geeignete Erweiterung die Sonnenscheindauer für beliebig ausgerichtete Dachflächen ermittelt werden. So können Lernende selbstständig auf experimentelle Weise die Einflüsse auf die Sonnenscheindauer untersuchen, ohne dabei auf die komplizierte sphärische Geometrie zurückgreifen zu müssen. Die anhand des Versuches gewonnenen Erkenntnisse können schließlich mit theoretischen Berechnungen verglichen werden und liefern sehr gute Übereinstimmungen

A quantitative risk assessment approach for mosquito-borne diseases: malaria re-emergence in southern France

Contains fulltext : 69138.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)BACKGROUND: The Camargue region is a former malaria endemic area, where potential Anopheles vectors are still abundant. Considering the importation of Plasmodium due to the high number of imported malaria cases in France, the aim of this article was to make some predictions regarding the risk of malaria re-emergence in the Camargue. METHODS: Receptivity (vectorial capacity) and infectivity (vector susceptibility) were inferred using an innovative probabilistic approach and considering both Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax. Each parameter of receptivity (human biting rate, anthropophily, length of trophogonic cycle, survival rate, length of sporogonic cycle) and infectivity were estimated based on field survey, bibliographic data and expert knowledge and fitted with probability distributions taking into account the variability and the uncertainty of the estimation. Spatial and temporal variations of the parameters were determined using environmental factors derived from satellite imagery, meteorological data and entomological field data. The entomological risk (receptivity/infectivity) was calculated using 10,000 different randomly selected sets of values extracted from the probability distributions. The result was mapped in the Camargue area. Finally, vulnerability (number of malaria imported cases) was inferred using data collected in regional hospitals. RESULTS: The entomological risk presented large spatial, temporal and Plasmodium species-dependent variations. The sensitivity analysis showed that susceptibility, survival rate and human biting rate were the three most influential parameters for entomological risk. Assessment of vulnerability showed that among the imported cases in the region, only very few were imported in at-risk areas. CONCLUSION: The current risk of malaria re-emergence seems negligible due to the very low number of imported Plasmodium. This model demonstrated its efficiency for mosquito-borne diseases risk assessment

SolarFormer: Multi-scale Transformer for Solar PV Profiling

As climate change intensifies, the global imperative to shift towards sustainable energy sources becomes more pronounced. Photovoltaic (PV) energy is a favored choice due to its reliability and ease of installation. Accurate mapping of PV installations is crucial for understanding their adoption and informing energy policy. To meet this need, we introduce the SolarFormer, designed to segment solar panels from aerial imagery, offering insights into their location and size. However, solar panel identification in Computer Vision is intricate due to various factors like weather conditions, roof conditions, and Ground Sampling Distance (GSD) variations. To tackle these complexities, we present the SolarFormer, featuring a multi-scale Transformer encoder and a masked-attention Transformer decoder. Our model leverages low-level features and incorporates an instance query mechanism to enhance the localization of solar PV installations. We rigorously evaluated our SolarFormer using diverse datasets, including GGE (France), IGN (France), and USGS (California, USA), across different GSDs. Our extensive experiments consistently demonstrate that our model either matches or surpasses state-of-the-art models, promising enhanced solar panel segmentation for global sustainable energy initiatives.Comment: Pre-prin

Produktplassering rettet mot barn

Produktplassering har i de siste årene blitt et mer voksende fenomen i Norge, ettersom det ble lovlig i 2013. Vi valgte å fokusere på produktplassering rettet mot barn, og hovedsakelig hvilken effekt produktplassering har og hvordan det påvirker atferden deres. For å finne ut av dette valgte vi å gjennomføre en kvantitativ undersøkelse, hvor vi gjennomførte et laboratorie-eksperiment med manipulasjon. Før vi gjennomførte studien måtte vi ordne all nødvendige materiell slik at vi stilte godt forberedt til selve eksperimentet. På bakgrunn av teorien vi kom med, utviklet vi tre hypoteser. Litteraturen vi har benyttet som er relevant til vår studie er teori om markedsføring, holdning og produktplassering, som er gjennomgående i hele oppgaven. Studien gikk ut på sammenligning av to grupper, hvor den ene gruppen ble eksponert av produktplassering i et filmklipp, og den andre gruppen ble manipulert uten plassering. Det var 66 respondenter med i studiet (missing = 4), som vi delte opp i to grupper. På slutten av studiet ble hver og en respondent utsatt for et valg, der de valgte mellom to merker. Det ene merket hadde blitt eksponert i den ene gruppen i form av en produktplassering, mens det andre var et konkurrerende merke. Etter endt studie satte vi i gang to fokusgrupper på bakgrunn av å hente inn mer nødvendig informasjon. Dataene vi fikk inn fra studien, ble analysert i statistikkprogrammet SPSS. For å få svar på våre hypoteser, gjennomførte vi relevante analyser. Ut i fra testene fant vi tendenser til at produktplassering rettet mot barn ga en effekt på kjøpsintensjon og atferd. Flere av respondentene som ble eksponert valgte eksponert merke, enn de respondentene som ikke ble eksponert. Dette er å anse som et godt resultat for vårt eksperiment, men det hadde vært ønskelig med flere respondenter for et enda tydeligere resultat. Produktplassering har i de siste årene blitt forsket mye på, men ved å ha gjennomført et studie på produktplassering rettet mot barn, har vi troen på at vår studie åpner for videre forskning innen vårt felt. Dette er et studie som kan videreføres og gå mer i dybden på, noe som hadde vært interessant