Resistance of Villages to Elevated-Road Traffic Noise

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the methods of reducing elevated-road traffic-noise levels in rural residential areas by controlling the relative locations and morphological parameters and to investigate the effect of noise barriers on noise attenuation along elevated roads and building facades in villages. This study selected six morphological parameters and used noise-mapping techniques to estimate the noise attenuation in 60 village sites. The results indicate that ‘quiet areas’ increase by approximately 10% for each additional 100 m increase in the distance between the elevated road and the village. The best strategy for noise reduction is keeping the elevated road 1,000 m away from the village and raising the road height to 20 m. The building façade conditions only affect the traffic noise level attenuation when the buildings are within 100 m of the elevated road. It was found that the cost-effective length of the road noise barrier is 600 m on both sides of the village parallel to the road. The results highlight the importance of using morphology to improve the traffic noise resistance of villages. The landscape shape indices of buildings and roads are the most important parameters that affect the traffic noise attenuation of elevated roads

Evidence of the influence of phonon density on Tm³⁺ upconversion luminescence in tellurite and germanate glasses

Author name used in this publication: C. L. MakAuthor name used in this publication: W. L. TsuiAuthor name used in this publication: K. H. Wong2001-2002 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalVersion of RecordPublishe

Dementia Trends: Impact of the Ageing Population and Societal Implications for Hong Kong

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Trends in prevalence and mortality of dementia in elderly Hong Kong population: projections, disease burden, and implications for long term care

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Chaotic phase synchronization in small-world networks of bursting neurons

Author name used in this publication: Y. K. WongAuthor name used in this publication: W. L. ChanAuthor name used in this publication: K. M. Tsang2010-2011 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalVersion of RecordPublishe

Lipid control and use of lipid-regulating drugs for prevention of cardiovascular events in Chinese type 2 diabetic patients: a prospective cohort study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Dyslipidaemia is an important but modifiable risk factor of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in type 2 diabetes. Yet, the effectiveness of lipid regulating drugs in Asians is lacking. We examined the effects of lipid control and treatment with lipid regulating drugs on new onset of CVD in Chinese type 2 diabetic patients.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In this prospective cohort consisting of 4521 type 2 diabetic patients without history of CVD and naïve for lipid regulating treatment recruited consecutively from 1996 to 2005, 371 developed CVD after a median follow-up of 4.9 years. We used Cox proportional hazard regression to obtain the hazard ratios (HR) of lipids and use of lipid regulating drugs for risk of CVD.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The multivariate-adjusted HR (95% confidence interval) of CVD in patients with high LDL-cholesterol (≥ 3.0 mmol/L) was 1.36 (1.08 - 1.71), compared with lower values. Using the whole range value of HDL-cholesterol, the risk of CVD was reduced by 41% with every 1 mmol/L increase in HDL-cholesterol. Plasma triglyceride did not predict CVD. Statins use was associated with lower CVD risk [HR = 0.66 (0.50 - 0.88)]. In sub-cohort analysis, statins use was associated with a HR of 0.60 (0.44 - 0.82) in patients with high LDL-cholesterol (≥ 3.0 mmol/L) and 0.49 (0.28 - 0.88) in patients with low HDL-cholesterol. In patients with LDL-cholesterol < 3.0 mmol/L, use of fibrate was associated with HR of 0.34 (0.12 - 1.00). Only statins were effective in reducing incident CVD in patients with metabolic syndrome [(HR = 0.58(0.42--0.80)].</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>In Chinese type 2 diabetic patients, high LDL-cholesterol and low HDL-cholesterol predicted incident CVD. Overall, patients treated with statins had 40-50% risk reduction in CVD compared to non-users.</p

Determinant representations of scalar products for the open XXZ chain with non-diagonal boundary terms

With the help of the F-basis provided by the Drinfeld twist or factorizing F-matrix for the open XXZ spin chain with non-diagonal boundary terms, we obtain the determinant representations of the scalar products of Bethe states of the model.Comment: Latex file, 28 pages, based on the talk given by W. -L. Yang at Statphys 24, Cairns, Australia, 19-23 July, 201

Facile Synthesis of Monodisperse CdS Nanocrystals via Microreaction

CdS-based nanocrystals (NCs) have attracted extensive interest due to their potential application as key luminescent materials for blue and white LEDs. In this research, the continuous synthesis of monodisperse CdS NCs was demonstrated utilizing a capillary microreactor. The enhanced heat and mass transfer in the microreactor was useful to reduce the reaction temperature and residence time to synthesize monodisperse CdS NCs. The superior stability of the microreactor and its continuous operation allowed the investigation of synthesis parameters with high efficiency. Reaction temperature was found to be a key parameter for balancing the reactivity of CdS precursors, while residence time was shown to be an important factor that governs the size and size distribution of the CdS NCs. Furthermore, variation of OA concentration was demonstrated to be a facile tuning mechanism for controlling the size of the CdS NCs. The variation of the volume percentage of OA from 10.5 to 51.2% and the variation of the residence time from 17 to 136 s facilitated the synthesis of monodisperse CdS NCs in the size range of 3.0–5.4 nm, and the NCs produced photoluminescent emissions in the range of 391–463 nm

Discovery of Sexual Dimorphisms in Metabolic and Genetic Biomarkers

Metabolomic profiling and the integration of whole-genome genetic association data has proven to be a powerful tool to comprehensively explore gene regulatory networks and to investigate the effects of genetic variation at the molecular level. Serum metabolite concentrations allow a direct readout of biological processes, and association of specific metabolomic signatures with complex diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and cardiovascular and metabolic disorders has been shown. There are well-known correlations between sex and the incidence, prevalence, age of onset, symptoms, and severity of a disease, as well as the reaction to drugs. However, most of the studies published so far did not consider the role of sexual dimorphism and did not analyse their data stratified by gender. This study investigated sex-specific differences of serum metabolite concentrations and their underlying genetic determination. For discovery and replication we used more than 3,300 independent individuals from KORA F3 and F4 with metabolite measurements of 131 metabolites, including amino acids, phosphatidylcholines, sphingomyelins, acylcarnitines, and C6-sugars. A linear regression approach revealed significant concentration differences between males and females for 102 out of 131 metabolites (p-values<3.8 x 10(-4); Bonferroni-corrected threshold). Sex-specific genome-wide association studies (GWAS) showed genome-wide significant differences in beta-estimates for SNPs in the CPS1 locus (carbamoyl-phosphate synthase 1, significance level: p<3.8 x 10(-10); Bonferroni-corrected threshold) for glycine. We showed that the metabolite profiles of males and females are significantly different and, furthermore, that specific genetic variants in metabolism-related genes depict sexual dimorphism. Our study provides new important insights into sex-specific differences of cell regulatory processes and underscores that studies should consider sex-specific effects in design and interpretation

Expression of androgen receptor and prostate-specific antigen in male breast carcinoma

BACKGROUND: The androgen-regulated proteins prostate-specific antigen (PSA) and prostate-specific acid phosphatase (PSAP) are present in high concentrations in normal prostate and prostatic cancer and are considered to be tissue-specific to prostate. These markers are commonly used to diagnose metastatic prostate carcinoma at various sites including the male breast. However, expression of these two proteins in tumors arising in tissues regulated by androgens such as male breast carcinoma has not been thoroughly evaluated. METHODS: In this study we analyzed the expression of PSA, PSAP and androgen receptor (AR) by immunohistochemistry in 26 cases of male breast carcinomas and correlated these with the expression of other prognostic markers. RESULTS: AR, PSA and PSAP expression was observed in 81%, 23% and 0% of carcinomas, respectively. Combined expression of AR and PSA was observed in only four tumors. CONCLUSION: Although the biological significance of PSA expression in male breast carcinomas is not clear, caution should be exercised when it is used as a diagnostic marker of metastatic prostate carcinoma