Preliminary findings of the Jockey Club Autism Support Network (JC A-Connect) Project - Family Support Team

Conference Theme: Support Learning and Developmentpublished_or_final_versio

An ecological analysis of secondary school students' drug use in Hong Kong: A case-control study

Background: Youth drug use is a significant at-risk youth behaviour and remains as one of the top priorities for mental health services, researchers and policy planners. The ecological characteristics of secondary school students’ behaviour in Hong Kong are understudied. Aim: To examine individual, familial, social and environmental correlates of drug use among secondary students in Hong Kong. Method: Data were extracted from a school survey with 3078 students. Among the 3078 students, 86 students reported to have used drugs in the past 6 months. A total of 86 age- and gender-matched controls with no drug-use behaviour in the past 6 months were randomly selected from the remaining students. Multiple logistic analysis was used to examine differential correlates between those who used and did not use substance in the past 6 months. Result: Positive school experience and perspective to school and parental support are protective factors of drug use. Lower self-esteem, lower self-efficacy against using drugs and higher level of permissive attitude towards drugs were associated with drug use. Students who were low in self-esteem and rather impulsive tend to use drugs. Conclusion: To prevent students from drug use, efforts in individual, family, school and community-levels should be addressed.postprin

Development of a Health Empowerment Programme to improve the health of working poor families: protocol for a prospective cohort study in Hong Kong

Introduction: People from working poor families are at high risk of poor health partly due to limited healthcare access. Health empowerment, a process by which people can gain greater control over the decisions affecting their lives and health through education and motivation, can be an effective way to enhance health, health-related quality of life (HRQOL), health awareness and health-seeking behaviours of these people. A new cohort study will be launched to explore the potential for a Health Empowerment Programme to enable these families by enhancing their health status and modifying their attitudes towards health-related issues. If proven effective, similar empowerment programme models could be tested and further disseminated in collaborations with healthcare providers and policymakers. Method and analysis: A prospective cohort study with 200 intervention families will be launched and followed up for 5 years. The following inclusion criteria will be used at the time of recruitment: (1) Having at least one working family member; (2) Having at least one child studying in grades 1–3; and (3) Having a monthly household income that is less than 75% of the median monthly household income of Hong Kong families. The Health Empowerment Programme that will be offered to intervention families will comprise four components: health assessment, health literacy, self-care enablement and health ambassador. Their health status, HRQOL, lifestyle and health service utilisation will be assessed and compared with 200 control families with matching characteristics but will not receive the health empowerment intervention. Ethics and dissemination: This project was approved by the University of Hong Kong—the Hospital Authority Hong Kong West Cluster IRB, Reference number: UW 12-517. The study findings will be disseminated through a series of peer-reviewed publications and conference presentations, as well as a yearly report to the philanthropic funding body–Kerry Group Kuok Foundation (Hong Kong) Limited.published_or_final_versio

Looking at Vector Space and Language Models for IR using Density Matrices

In this work, we conduct a joint analysis of both Vector Space and Language Models for IR using the mathematical framework of Quantum Theory. We shed light on how both models allocate the space of density matrices. A density matrix is shown to be a general representational tool capable of leveraging capabilities of both VSM and LM representations thus paving the way for a new generation of retrieval models. We analyze the possible implications suggested by our findings.Comment: In Proceedings of Quantum Interaction 201

Preclinical analysis of the anti-tumor and anti-metastatic effects of Raf265 on colon cancer cells and CD26(+) cancer stem cells in colorectal carcinoma

© 2015 Chow et al.Background: In colorectal carcinoma (CRC), activation of the Raf/MEK/ERK signaling pathway is commonly observed. In addition, the commonly used 5FU-based chemotherapy in patients with metastatic CRC was found to enrich a subpopulation of CD26+ cancer stem cells (CSCs). As activation of the Raf/MEK/ERK signaling pathway was also found in the CD26+ CSCs and therefore, we hypothesized that an ATP-competitive pan-Raf inhibitor, Raf265, is effective in eliminating the cancer cells and the CD26+ CSCs in CRC patients. Methods: HT29 and HCT116 cells were treated with various concentrations of Raf265 to study the anti-proliferative and apoptotic effects of Raf265. Anti-tumor effect was also demonstrated using a xenograft model. Cells were also treated with Raf265 in combination with 5FU to demonstrate the anti-migratory and invasive effects by targeting on the CD26+ CSCs and the anti-metastatic effect of the combined treatment was shown in an orthotopic CRC model. Results: Raf265 was found to be highly effective in inhibiting cell proliferation and tumor growth through the inhibition of the RAF/MEK/ERK signaling pathway. In addition, anti-migratory and invasive effect was found with Raf265 treatment in combination with 5FU by targeting on the CD26+ cells. Finally, the anti-tumor and anti-metastatic effect of Raf265 in combination with 5FU was also demonstrated. Conclusions: This preclinical study demonstrates the anti-tumor and anti-metastatic activity of Raf265 in CRC, providing the basis for exploiting its potential use and combination therapy with 5FU in the clinical treatment of CRC.published_or_final_versio

Prognostic significance of CD26 in patients with colorectal cancer

Background: CD26, dipeptidyl peptidase IV, was discovered firstly as a membrane-associated peptidase on the surface of leukocyte. We previously demonstrated that a subpopulation of CD26+ cells were associated with the development of distant metastasis, enhanced invasiveness and chemoresistance in colorectal cancer (CRC). In order to understand the clinical impact of CD26, the expression was investigated in CRC patient's specimens. This study investigated the prognostic significance of tumour CD26 expression in patients with CRC. Examination of CD26+ cells has significant clinical impact for the prediction of distant metastasis development in colorectal cancer, and could be used as a selection criterion for further therapy. Methods: Tumour CD26 expression levels were studied by immunohistochemistry using Formalin-fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) tissues in 143 patients with CRC. Tumour CD26 expression levels were correlated with clinicopathological features of the CRC patients. The prognostic significance of tumour tissue CD26 expression levels was assessed by univariate and multivariate analyses. Result: CD26 expression levels in CRC patients with distant metastasis were significantly higher than those in non-metastatic. High expression levels of CD26 were significantly associated with advanced tumour staging. Patients with a high CD26 expression level had significantly worse overall survival than those with a lower level (p<0.001). Conclusions: The expression of CD26 was positively associated with clinicopathological correlation such as TNM staging, degree of differentiation and development of metastasis. A high CD26 expression level is a predictor of poor outcome after resection of CRC. CD26 may be a useful prognostic marker in patients with CRC. © 2014 Lam et al.published_or_final_versio

The clinicopathological significance of miR-133a in colorectal cancer

This study determined the expression of microRNA-133a (MiR-133a) in colorectal cancer (CRC) and adjacent normal mucosa samples and evaluated its clinicopathological role in CRC. The expression of miR-133a in 125 pairs of tissue samples was analyzed by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) and correlated with patient's clinicopathological data by statistical analysis. Endogenous expression levels of several potential target genes were determined by qRT-PCR and correlated using Pearson's method. MiR-133a was downregulated in 83.2% of tumors compared to normal mucosal tissue. Higher miR-133a expression in tumor tissues was associated with development of distant metastasis, advanced Dukes and TNM staging, and poor survival. The unfavorable prognosis of higher miR-133a expression was accompanied by dysregulation of potential miR-133a target genes, LIM and SH3 domain protein 1 (LASP1), Caveolin-1 (CAV1), and Fascin-1 (FSCN1). LASP1 was found to possess a negative correlation (γ=-0.23), whereas CAV1 exhibited a significant positive correlation (γ=0.27), and a stronger correlation was found in patients who developed distant metastases (γ=0.42). In addition, a negative correlation of FSCN1 was only found in nonmetastatic patients. In conclusion, miR-133a was downregulated in CRC tissues, but its higher expression correlated with adverse clinical characteristics and poor prognosis. © 2014 Timothy Ming-Hun Wan et al.published_or_final_versio

Probabilistic Team Semantics

Team semantics is a semantical framework for the study of dependence and independence concepts ubiquitous in many areas such as databases and statistics. In recent works team semantics has been generalised to accommodate also multisets and probabilistic dependencies. In this article we study a variant of probabilistic team semantics and relate this framework to a Tarskian two-sorted logic. We also show that very simple quantifier-free formulae of our logic give rise to backslashmathrm NP NP -hard model checking problems.Peer reviewe