Attitudes to smoking cessation and triggers to relapse among Chinese male smokers

BACKGROUND: Smoking is related to many diseases, and the relapse to smoking after cessation in China is noticeable. We examined the attitudes of Chinese male smokers regarding smoking cessation and reasons for relapse. METHODS: We interviewed 201 male smokers in Hangzhou City, Zhejiang province, China who had tried to quit smoking at least once in order to identify reasons for quitting and situations triggering relapse. RESULTS: The most significant reported reasons for quitting included personal health (77.1%), the cost of cigarettes (53.7%), and family pressures to quit (29.9%). The most common factors triggering relapse were social situations (34.3%), feeling negative or down (13.4%) and times of being alone (8.4%). CONCLUSION: Health and family concerns, personal factors, the influence of others and a lack of cessation resources were cited as salient factors concerning smoking cessation among male smokers in this study. Effective smoking control efforts in China will require attention to these influences if China is to curb its current smoking epidemic

Using DMA to Simultaneously Acquire Young's Relaxation Modulus and Time-dependent Poisson's Ratio of a Viscoelastic Material

AbstractA method to obtain the Young's relaxation modulus and time-dependent Poisson's ratio simultaneously by using DMA is developed with the assumption of constant bulk modulus instead of constant Poisson's ratio. The constant bulk modulus is then calculated by either instantaneous response or the equilibrium response of the time-dependent Poisson's ratio. The modulating Young's moduli and characteristic times that measured by DMA are corrected analytically by using the developed formulas. The time-dependent Poisson's ratio is then obtained from the corrected modulating Young's moduli and the constant bulk modulus. As an application example, the method is applied to the DMA measurement of an epoxy molding compound (EMC). Although the correction to Young's relaxation modulus is very small, the viscoelastic Poisson's ratio varies significantly over time from 0.4 to 0.496, and can’t be assumed as a constant

Cost-effective priorities for the expansion of global terrestrial protected areas: Setting 2 post-2020 global and national targets

Biodiversity loss is a social and ecological emergency, and calls have been made for the global expansion of protected areas (PAs) to tackle this crisis. It is unclear, however, where best to locate new PAs to protect biodiversity cost-effectively. To answer this question, we conducted a spatial meta-analysis by overlaying seven global biodiversity templates to identify Conservation Priority Zones (CPZs). These are then combined with Low Human Impact Areas (LIAs) to identify Cost-Effective Zones for PA designation (CEZs). CEZs cover around 38% of global terrestrial area, of which only 24% is currently covered by existing PAs. To protect more CEZs, we propose three scenarios with conservative, moderate and ambitious targets, which aim to protect 19%, 26% and 43% of global terrestrial area, respectively. These three targets are set for each Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) party with spatially-explicit CEZs identified, providing valuable decision support for the post-2020 global biodiversity framework

The spin-1/2 XXZ Heisenberg chain, the quantum algebra U_q[sl(2)], and duality transformations for minimal models

The finite-size scaling spectra of the spin-1/2 XXZ Heisenberg chain with toroidal boundary conditions and an even number of sites provide a projection mechanism yielding the spectra of models with a central charge c<1 including the unitary and non-unitary minimal series. Taking into account the half-integer angular momentum sectors - which correspond to chains with an odd number of sites - in many cases leads to new spinor operators appearing in the projected systems. These new sectors in the XXZ chain correspond to a new type of frustration lines in the projected minimal models. The corresponding new boundary conditions in the Hamiltonian limit are investigated for the Ising model and the 3-state Potts model and are shown to be related to duality transformations which are an additional symmetry at their self-dual critical point. By different ways of projecting systems we find models with the same central charge sharing the same operator content and modular invariant partition function which however differ in the distribution of operators into sectors and hence in the physical meaning of the operators involved. Related to the projection mechanism in the continuum there are remarkable symmetry properties of the finite XXZ chain. The observed degeneracies in the energy and momentum spectra are shown to be the consequence of intertwining relations involving U_q[sl(2)] quantum algebra transformations.Comment: This is a preprint version (37 pages, LaTeX) of an article published back in 1993. It has been made available here because there has been recent interest in conformal twisted boundary conditions. The "duality-twisted" boundary conditions discussed in this paper are particular examples of such boundary conditions for quantum spin chains, so there might be some renewed interest in these result

Molecular dynamics simulations of oscillatory Couette flows with slip boundary conditions

The effect of interfacial slip on steady-state and time-periodic flows of monatomic liquids is investigated using non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations. The fluid phase is confined between atomically smooth rigid walls, and the fluid flows are induced by moving one of the walls. In steady shear flows, the slip length increases almost linearly with shear rate. We found that the velocity profiles in oscillatory flows are well described by the Stokes flow solution with the slip length that depends on the local shear rate. Interestingly, the rate dependence of the slip length obtained in steady shear flows is recovered when the slip length in oscillatory flows is plotted as a function of the local shear rate magnitude. For both types of flows, the friction coefficient at the liquid-solid interface correlates well with the structure of the first fluid layer near the solid wall.Comment: 31 pages, 11 figure

Smoking, cessation and expenditure in low income Chinese: cross sectional survey

BACKGROUND: This study was carried-out to explore smoking behaviour and smoking expenditure among low income workers in Eastern China to inform tobacco control policy. METHODS: A self-completion questionnaire was administered to 1958 urban workers, 1909 rural workers and 3248 migrant workers in Zhejiang Province, Eastern China in 2004. RESULTS: Overall 54% of the men and 1.8% of all women were current smokers (at least 1 cigarette per day). Smoking was least common in migrant men (51%), compared with 58% of urban workers and 64% rural inhabitants (P < 0.0001). Forty-nine percent of rural males smoke more than 10 cigarettes/day, and 22% over 20/day. The prevalence of smoking increased with age. Overall 9% of the males had successfully quit smoking. Reasons for quitting were to prevent future illness (58%), current illness (31%), family pressures (20%) and financial considerations (20%). Thirteen percent of current smokers had ever tried to quit (cessation for at least one week) while 22% intended to quit, with migrants most likely to intend to quit. Almost all (96%) were aware that smoking was harmful to health, though only 25% were aware of the dangers of passive smoking. A mean of 11% of personal monthly income is spent on smoking rising to a mean of 15.4% in rural smokers. This expenditure was found to have major opportunity costs, including in terms of healthcare access. CONCLUSION: The prevalence of smoking and successful quitting suggest that smoking prevalence in low income groups in Eastern China may have peaked. Tobacco control should focus on support for quitters, on workplace/public place smoking restrictions and should develop specific programmes in rural areas. Health education messages should emphasise the opportunity costs of smoking and the dangers of passive smoking

A sufficient criterion for integrability of stochastic many-body dynamics and quantum spin chains

We propose a dynamical matrix product ansatz describing the stochastic dynamics of two species of particles with excluded-volume interaction and the quantum mechanics of the associated quantum spin chains respectively. Analyzing consistency of the time-dependent algebra which is obtained from the action of the corresponding Markov generator, we obtain sufficient conditions on the hopping rates for identifing the integrable models. From the dynamical algebra we construct the quadratic algebra of Zamolodchikov type, associativity of which is a Yang Baxter equation. The Bethe ansatz equations for the spectra are obtained directly from the dynamical matrix product ansatz.Comment: 19 pages Late

Fabrication of Porous TiO2 Hollow Spheres and Their Application in Gas Sensing

In this work, porous TiO2 hollow spheres with an average diameter of 100 nm and shell thickness of 20 nm were synthesized by a facile hydrothermal method with NH4HCO3 as the structure-directing agent, and the formation mechanism for this porous hollow structure was proved to be the Ostwald ripening process by tracking the morphology of the products at different reaction stages. The product was characterized by SEM, TEM, XRD and BET analyses, and the results show that the as-synthesized products are anatase phase with a high surface area up to 132.5 m2/g. Gas-sensing investigation reveals that the product possesses sensitive response to methanal gas at 200°C due to its high surface area