Predictors of betel quid chewing behavior and cessation patterns in Taiwan aborigines

BACKGROUND: Betel quid, chewed by about 600 million people worldwide, is one of the most widely used addictive substances. Cessation factors in betel quid chewers are unknown. The present study explores prevalence and the quit rate of betel quid chewing in Taiwan aborigines. Our goal was to delineate potential predictors of chewing cessation. METHODS: A stratified random community-based survey was designed for the entire aborigines communities in Taiwan. A total of 7144 participants were included between June 2003 and May 2004 in this study. Information on sociodemographic characteristics, such as gender, age, obesity, education years, marital status, ethnicity, and habits of betel quid chewing, smoking and drinking was collected by trained interviewers. RESULTS: The prevalence of betel quid chewers was 46.1%. Betel quid chewing was closely associated with obesity (OR = 1.61; 95% CI: 1.40–1.85). Betel quid chewers were most likely to use alcohol and cigarettes together. Quit rate of betel quid chewers was 7.6%. Betel quid chewers who did not drink alcohol were more likely to quit (OR = 1.89; 95% CI: 1.43–2.50). Alcohol use is a significant factor related to cessation of betel quid chewing, but smoking is not. CONCLUSION: Taiwan aborigines have a high prevalence of betel quid chewers and a low quit rate. Alcohol use is strongly association with betel quid chewing. Efforts to reduce habitual alcohol consumption might be of benefit in cessation of betel quid chewing

Monetary reward and punishment to response inhibition modulate activation and synchronization within the inhibitory brain network

© 2018 Chikara, Chang, Lu, Lin, Lin and Ko. A reward or punishment can modulate motivation and emotions, which in turn affect cognitive processing. The present simultaneous functional magnetic resonance imaging-electroencephalography study examines neural mechanisms of response inhibition under the influence of a monetary reward or punishment by implementing a modified stop-signal task in a virtual battlefield scenario. The participants were instructed to play as snipers who open fire at a terrorist target but withhold shooting in the presence of a hostage. The participants performed the task under three different feedback conditions in counterbalanced order: a reward condition where each successfully withheld response added a bonus (i.e., positive feedback) to the startup credit, a punishment condition where each failure in stopping deduced a penalty (i.e., negative feedback), and a no-feedback condition where response outcome had no consequences and served as a control setting. Behaviorally both reward and punishment conditions led to significantly down-regulated inhibitory function in terms of the critical stop-signal delay. As for the neuroimaging results, increased activities were found for the no-feedback condition in regions previously reported to be associated with response inhibition, including the right inferior frontal gyrus and the pre-supplementary motor area. Moreover, higher activation of the lingual gyrus, posterior cingulate gyrus (PCG) and inferior parietal lobule were found in the reward condition, while stronger activation of the precuneus gyrus was found in the punishment condition. The positive feedback was also associated with stronger changes of delta, theta, and alpha synchronization in the PCG than were the negative or no-feedback conditions. These findings depicted the intertwining relationship between response inhibition and motivation networks

Multimodal fuzzy fusion for enhancing the motor-imagery-based brain computer interface

© 2005-2012 IEEE. Brain-computer interface technologies, such as steady-state visually evoked potential, P300, and motor imagery are methods of communication between the human brain and the external devices. Motor imagery-based brain-computer interfaces are popular because they avoid unnecessary external stimuli. Although feature extraction methods have been illustrated in several machine intelligent systems in motor imagery-based brain-computer interface studies, the performance remains unsatisfactory. There is increasing interest in the use of the fuzzy integrals, the Choquet and Sugeno integrals, that are appropriate for use in applications in which fusion of data must consider possible data interactions. To enhance the classification accuracy of brain-computer interfaces, we adopted fuzzy integrals, after employing the classification method of traditional brain-computer interfaces, to consider possible links between the data. Subsequently, we proposed a novel classification framework called the multimodal fuzzy fusion-based brain-computer interface system. Ten volunteers performed a motor imagery-based brain-computer interface experiment, and we acquired electroencephalography signals simultaneously. The multimodal fuzzy fusion-based brain-computer interface system enhanced performance compared with traditional brain-computer interface systems. Furthermore, when using the motor imagery-relevant electroencephalography frequency alpha and beta bands for the input features, the system achieved the highest accuracy, up to 78.81% and 78.45% with the Choquet and Sugeno integrals, respectively. Herein, we present a novel concept for enhancing brain-computer interface systems that adopts fuzzy integrals, especially in the fusion for classifying brain-computer interface commands

Single channel wireless EEG device for real-time fatigue level detection

© 2015 IEEE. Driver fatigue problem is one of the important factors of traffic accidents. Recent years, many research had investigated that using EEG signals can effectively detect driver's drowsiness level. However, real-time monitoring system is required to apply these fatigue level detection techniques in the practical application, especially in the real-road driving. Therefore, it required less channels, portable and wireless, real-time monitoring and processing techniques for developing the real-time monitoring system. In this study, we develop a single channel wireless EEG device which can real-time detect driver's fatigue level on the mobile device such as smart phone or tablet. The developed device is investigated to obtain a better and precise understanding of brain activities of mental fatigue under driving, which is of great benefit for devolvement of detection of driving fatigue system. This system consists of a Bluetooth-enabled one channel EEG, a regression model, and smartphone, which was a platform recording and transforming the raw EEG data to useful driving status. In the experiment, this was a sustained-attention driving task to implement in a virtual-reality (VR) driving simulator. To training model and develop the system, we were performed for 15 subjects to study Electroencephalography (EEG) brain dynamics by using a mobile and wireless EEG device. Based on the outstanding training results, the leave-one-subject-out cross validation test obtained 90% fatigue detection accuracy. These results indicate that the combination of a smartphone and wireless EEG device constitutes an effective and easy wearable solution for detecting and preventing driver fatigue in real driving environments

The precancer risk of betel quid chewing, tobacco use and alcohol consumption in oral leukoplakia and oral submucous fibrosis in southern Taiwan

In areas where the practise of betel quid chewing is widespread and the chewers also often smoke and drink alcohol, the relation between oral precancerous lesion and condition to the three habits is probably complex. To explore such association and their attributable effect on oral leukoplakia (OL) and oral submucous fibrosis (OSF), a gender–age-matched case–control study was conducted at Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan. This study included 219 patients with newly diagnosed and histologically confirmed OL or OSF, and 876 randomly selected community controls. All information was collected by a structured questionnaire through in-person interviews. A preponderance of younger patients had OSF, while a predominance of older patients had OL. Betel quid chewing was strongly associated with both these oral diseases, the attributable fraction of OL being 73.2% and of OSF 85.4%. While the heterogeneity in risk for areca nut chewing across the two diseases was not apparent, betel quid chewing patients with OSF experienced a higher risk at each exposure level of chewing duration, quantity and cumulative measure than those who had OL. Alcohol intake did not appear to be a risk factor. However, cigarette smoking had a significant contribution to the risk of OL, and modified the effect of chewing based on an additive interaction model. For the two oral premalignant diseases combined, 86.5% was attributable to chewing and smoking. Our results suggested that, although betel quid chewing was a major cause for both OL and OSF, its effect might be difference between the two diseases. Cigarette smoking has a modifying effect in the development of oral leukoplakia

Important prognostic factors for the long-term survival of lung cancer subjects in Taiwan

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>This study used a large-scale cancer database in determination of prognostic factors for the survival of lung cancer subjects in Taiwan.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Total of 24,910 subjects diagnosed with lung cancer was analysed. Survival estimates by Kaplan-Meier methods. Cox proportional-hazards model estimated the death risk (hazard ratio (HR)) for various prognostic factors.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The prognostic indicators associated with a higher risk of lung cancer deaths are male gender (males versus females; HR = 1.07, 95% confidence intervals (CI): 1.03–1.11), males diagnosed in later periods (shown in 1991–1994 versus 1987–1990; HR = 1.13), older age at diagnosis, large cell carcinoma (LCC)/small cell carcinoma (SCC), and supportive care therapy over chemotherapy. The overall 5-year survival rate for lung cancer death was significantly poorer for males (21.3%) than females (23.6%). Subjects with squamous cell carcinoma (SQCC) and treatment by surgical resection alone had better prognosis. We find surgical resections to markedly increase 5-year survival rate from LCC, decreased risk of death from LCC, and no improved survival from SCC.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Gender and clinical characteristics (i.e. diagnostic period, diagnostic age, histological type and treatment modality) play important roles in determining lung cancer survival.</p

Metronomic oral cyclosphosphamide as third-line systemic treatment or beyond in patients with inoperable locoregionally advanced recurrent or metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma

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From BIM towards digital twin: Strategy and future development for smart asset management

With the rising adoption of Building Information Model (BIM) for as-set management within architecture, engineering, construction and owner-operated (AECO) sector, BIM-enabled asset management has been increasingly attracting more attentions in both research and practice. This study provides a comprehensive review and analysis of the state-of-the-art latest research and industry standards development that impact upon BIM and asset management within the operations and maintenance (O&M) phase. However, BIM is not always enough in whole-life cycle asset management, especially in the O&M phase. Therefore, a framework for future development of smart asset management are proposed, integrating the concept of Digital Twin (DT). DT integrates artificial intelligence, machine learning and data analytics to create dynamic digital models that are able to learn and update the status of the physical counterpart from multiple sources. The findings will contribute to inspiring novel research ideas and promote wide-spread adoption of smart DT-enabled asset management within the O&M phaseCentre for Digital Built Britain, Innovate U

Relationship between site of oesophageal cancer and areca chewing and smoking in Taiwan

Among 309 male patients, those who had heavily consumed betel and tobacco were more likely than nonchewers (OR = 2. 91; 95% CI = 1.36-6.25) and nonsmokers (OR = 2.49; 95% CI = 1.02-6.08) to develop cancer in the upper and middle third of the oesophagus, respectively; the effects of alcohol did not dominate in any third

Risk of betel chewing for oesophageal cancer in Taiwan

Among 104 cases of squamous-cell oesophageal carcinoma patients and 277 controls in Taiwan, after adjusting for cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption, and other confounders, we found that subjects who chewed from 1 to 495 betel-year and more than 495 betel-years (about 20 betel quid per day for 20 years) had 3.6-fold (95% Cl = 1.3–10.1) and 9.2-fold risk (95% Cl = 1.8–46.7), respectively, of developing oesophageal cancer, compared to those who did not chew betel. © 2001 Cancer Research Campaign http://www.bjcancer.co