36 research outputs found
The Specific Characteristics of Childhood Obesity and the Effective Strategies to Combat Childhood Obesity in Hong Kong: A Short Review
Childhood obesity is a serious public health problem all around the world. The problem also currently exists in Hong Kong. Unhealthy lifestyle behavior may be one of key factors contributing to childhood obesity. The review revealed the specific characteristics of childhood obesity and the effective strategies in prevention of childhood obesity in Hong Kong context. Hong Kong is a metropolitan city which is interwoven eastern and western culture. The historical reasons and the complex political issues lead to overcrowded of people living in a small place. The environmental factors and the lifestyle pattern are the crucial causes contributing to childhood obesity. Parents have significant influence in shaping lifestyle behavior of children. While Chinese culture, informal childcare and more energy-dense food consumptions are the specific factors affecting children in lifestyle behavior as shown in the previous studies. The finding of the present review paper is expected to realize root causes of the prevalence of childhood obesity. On the other hand, many studies regarding to the treatment of childhood obesity were also reviewed. It was found that fewer studies were conducted to provide the combined intervention to combat childhood obesity. Generally, parental education was not the focus of childhood obesity intervention programs and parent-oriented approach was not commonly adopted in these programs. While limited childhood obesity intervention programs have been conducted in Hong Kong, it is recommended to conduct an appropriate program for children specifically in Hong Kong context. The design of preventive strategies should take into consideration of these specific characteristics in Hong Kong to reverse the increased prevalence of childhood obesity
Towards Personalized Healthcare in Cardiac Population: The Development of a Wearable ECG Monitoring System, an ECG Lossy Compression Schema, and a ResNet-Based AF Detector
Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the number one cause of death worldwide.
While there is growing evidence that the atrial fibrillation (AF) has strong
associations with various CVDs, this heart arrhythmia is usually diagnosed
using electrocardiography (ECG) which is a risk-free, non-intrusive, and
cost-efficient tool. Continuously and remotely monitoring the subjects' ECG
information unlocks the potentials of prompt pre-diagnosis and timely
pre-treatment of AF before the development of any life-threatening
conditions/diseases. Ultimately, the CVDs associated mortality could be
reduced. In this manuscript, the design and implementation of a personalized
healthcare system embodying a wearable ECG device, a mobile application, and a
back-end server are presented. This system continuously monitors the users' ECG
information to provide personalized health warnings/feedbacks. The users are
able to communicate with their paired health advisors through this system for
remote diagnoses, interventions, etc. The implemented wearable ECG devices have
been evaluated and showed excellent intra-consistency (CVRMS=5.5%), acceptable
inter-consistency (CVRMS=12.1%), and negligible RR-interval errors (ARE<1.4%).
To boost the battery life of the wearable devices, a lossy compression schema
utilizing the quasi-periodic feature of ECG signals to achieve compression was
proposed. Compared to the recognized schemata, it outperformed the others in
terms of compression efficiency and distortion, and achieved at least 2x of CR
at a certain PRD or RMSE for ECG signals from the MIT-BIH database. To enable
automated AF diagnosis/screening in the proposed system, a ResNet-based AF
detector was developed. For the ECG records from the 2017 PhysioNet CinC
challenge, this AF detector obtained an average testing F1=85.10% and a best
testing F1=87.31%, outperforming the state-of-the-art
Hong Kong Renal Registry Report 2012
SummaryThis report examined the characteristics and trends of dialysis and renal transplant patients among the resident population of Hong Kong who were managed by hospitals or dialysis centers of the Hospital Authority, and accounted for approximately 95% of all patients receiving renal replacement therapies (RRTs) in the territory. Patients receiving RRTs solely in the private sector were not included in this report. Data trends from 1996 to 2011 are presented. In 2011, 1115 new patients were accepted into RRT programs, and the incident rate was 157 patients per million populations (pmp). An increasing trend was noted. The incident rate was 95.1 pmp at the commencement of the annual report in 1996. The point prevalence on December 31, 2012 was 8197 with a prevalence rate of 1152.5 pmp. Overall, there were 3573 patients (43.6%) on peritoneal dialysis (PD) and 1246 patients (15.2%) on hemodialysis (HD), and 3378 patients (41.2%) were living with a functioning renal transplant. The PD/HD ratio was 74.2:25.8. The “PD First” policy was continued. The overall mortality rate among RRT patients was 9.95 patients per 100 patient-years exposed. There was a decreasing trend in mortality among PD patients. Infection and cardiovascular complications were the most common causes of death. Renal transplant was the modality with the best survival rates. The 5 years cumulative patient survival rate for patients on transplant treatment was 89.6%, whereas the corresponding patient survival rates for PD and HD patients were 50.7% and 55.7%, respectively. More than 70% of RRT patients with reports on rehabilitation were active and had normal daily activities
Reactivation of Epstein–Barr virus by a dual-responsive fluorescent EBNA1-targeting agent with Zn2+-chelating function
EBNA1 is the only Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) latent protein responsible for viral genome maintenance and is expressed in all EBV-infected cells. Zn2+ is essential for oligomerization of the functional EBNA1. We constructed an EBNA1 binding peptide with a Zn2+ chelator to create an EBNA1-specific inhibitor (ZRL5P4). ZRL5P4 by itself is sufficient to reactivate EBV from its latent infection. ZRL5P4 is able to emit unique responsive fluorescent signals once it binds with EBNA1 and a Zn2+ ion. ZRL5P4 can selectively disrupt the EBNA1 oligomerization and cause nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) tumor shrinkage, possibly due to EBV lytic induction. Dicer1 seems essential for this lytic reactivation. As can been seen, EBNA1 is likely to maintain NPC cell survival by suppressing viral reactivation
Surgical treatment of patients with acute cholecystitis: Tokyo Guidelines
Cholecystectomy has been widely performed in the treatment of acute cholecystitis, and laparoscopic cholecystectomy has been increasingly adopted as the method of surgery over the past 15 years. Despite the success of laparoscopic cholecystectomy as an elective treatment for symptomatic gallstones, acute cholecystitis was initially considered a contraindication for laparoscopic cholecystectomy. The reasons for it being considered a contraindication were the technical difficulty of performing it in acute cholecystitis and the development of complications, including bile duct injury, bowel injury, and hepatic injury. However, laparoscopic cholecystectomy is now accepted as being safe for acute cholecystitis, when surgeons who are expert at the laparoscopic technique perform it. Laparoscopic cholecystectomy has been found to be superior to open cholecystectomy as a treatment for acute cholecystitis because of a lower incidence of complications, shorter length of postoperative hospital stay, quicker recuperation, and earlier return to work. However, laparoscopic cholecystectomy for acute cholecystitis has not become routine, because the timing and approach to the surgical management in patients with acute cholecystitis is still a matter of controversy. These Guidelines describe the timing of and the optimal surgical treatment of acute cholecystitis in a question-and-answer format