Heterogeneity in familial clustering of metabolic syndrome components in the multiethnic GENNID study.

OBJECTIVE: Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is defined by clustering of cardiometabolic components, which may be present in different combinations. The authors evaluated clustering in individuals and extended families within and across ancestry groups. METHODS: The prevalence of different combinations of MetS components (high fasting glucose, low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, high triglycerides, high blood pressure, and abdominal obesity) was estimated in 1651 individuals (340 families) self-reporting as European American (EA), Hispanic/Mexican American (MA), African American (AA), and Japanese American (JA). Odds ratios were estimated using logistic regression with generalized estimating equations comparing individual MetS components, number, and combinations of components for each ancestry group versus EA. RESULTS: Clustering of all five components (Combination #16) was more prevalent in EA (29.9%) and MA (25.2%) individuals than in AA (18.7%) and JA (15.5%) individuals. Compared with EA individuals, AA individuals were 64% and 66% less likely to have high triglycerides and low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, whereas JA individuals were 85% and 56% less likely to have abdominal obesity and high blood pressure, respectively. Compared with EA individuals, the odds of having two, four, or five components were at least 77% lower in JA individuals, whereas the odds of having three, four, or five components were at least 3.79 times greater in MA individuals. CONCLUSIONS: Understanding heterogeneity in MetS clustering may identify factors important in reducing health disparities.

Effectiveness of personalized smoking cessation intervention based on ecological momentary assessment for smokers who prefer unaided quitting: protocol for a randomized controlled trial.

Introduction: Ecological momentary assessment (EMA)-based smoking cessation intervention may help personalize intervention for smokers who prefer to quit smoking unaided. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of EMA-based phone counseling and instant messaging for smoking cessation. Methods/design: This is a two-arm, accessor-blinded, simple individual randomized controlled trial (allocation ratio 1:1). Participants will be recruited from community sites and online platforms in Hong Kong. Interventions will be delivered via a phone call and instant messaging. Current adult smokers who (1) self-report no intention to use smoking cessation services and medication in the coming month and (2) have not used smoking cessation services or nicotine replacement therapy in the past 7 days will be recruited. Recruited participants will be randomized to intervention or control groups via an online randomizer. All participants will be required to complete EMAs (five times per day for 7 consecutive days). The intervention group (n = 220) will receive a nurse-led brief phone counseling immediately after the 1-week EMAs and 10-week EMA-based advice via instant messaging applications (e.g., WhatsApp, WeChat). The 10-week EMA-based advice covers a summary of the 1-week EMAs, and tailored cessation support focused on personalized smoking triggers. The control group (n = 220) will not receive any intervention during the same period. The primary outcomes are participants' progression toward smoking cessation assessed by the Incremental Behavior Change toward Smoking Cessation (IBC-S) and biochemically validated abstinence at the 3-month follow-up. Secondary outcomes include self-reported and biochemically validated tobacco abstinence at the 6-month follow-up. Discussion: The findings will provide evidence that the EMA-based tailored smoking cessation intervention can be adapted as a new health promotion strategy for current smokers who are unwilling to use smoking cessation aids. Clinical trial registration: https://classic.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05212220, identifier: NCT05212220.

Exploration of Damage Identification Method for a Large-Span Timber Lattice Shell Structure in Taiyuan Botanical Garden based on Structural Health Monitoring.

Large-span spatial lattice structures generally have characteristics such as incomplete modal information, high modal density, and high degrees of freedom. To address the problem of misjudgment in the damage detection of large-span spatial structures caused by these characteristics, this paper proposed a damage identification method based on time series models. Firstly, the order of the autoregressive moving average (ARMA) model was selected based on the Akaike information criterion (AIC). Then, the long autoregressive method was used to estimate the parameters of the ARMA model and extract the residual sequence of the autocorrelation part of the model. Furthermore, principal component analysis (PCA) was introduced to reduce the dimensionality of the model while retaining the characteristic values. Finally, the Mahalanobis distance (MD) was used to construct the damage sensitive feature (DSF). The dome of Taiyuan Botanical Garden in China is one of the largest non-triangular timber lattice shells worldwide. Relying on the structural health monitoring (SHM) project of this structure, this paper verified the effectiveness of the damage identification model through numerical simulation and determined the damage degree of the dome structure through SHM measurement data. The results demonstrated that the proposed damage identification method can effectively identify the damage of large-span timber lattice structures, locate the damage position, and estimate the degree of damage. The constructed DSF had relatively strong robustness to small damage and environmental noise and has practical application value for SHM in engineering.

Assessment of recombinant antigens Tp0100 and Tp1016 of Treponema pallidum for serological diagnosis of syphilis.

OBJECTIVE: To discover novel serodiagnostic candidates for the serological diagnosis of syphilis. METHODS: Two recombinant Treponema pallidum proteins Tp0100 and Tp1016 were expressed, purified, and identified by Western Blotting. A total of 600 clinical serum samples were tested with the Tp0100-based ELISA, the Tp1016-based ELISA, and the commercial LICA Syphilis TP kit (ChIVD, Beijing, China). The sensitivities were determined by testing 340 samples from individuals with clinically diagnosed primary, secondary, latent, and tertiary syphilis. The specificities were determined by screening 260 samples from healthy controls and individuals with potentially cross-reactive infections, including leptospirosis, Lyme disease, hepatitis B, tuberculosis, rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus. Kappa (κ) values were applied to compare the agreement between clinical syphilis diagnosis and the Tp0100-based ELISA, the Tp1016-based ELISA, or the LICA Syphilis TP test. RESULTS: Using clinical syphilis diagnosis as the gold standard, Tp0100 exhibited an overall sensitivity of 95.6% and specificity of 98.1% for testing IgG antibody while Tp1016 demonstrated only an overall sensitivity of 75.0% and specificity of 79.6%. In contrast, the LICA Syphilis TP test revealed an overall sensitivity of 97.6% and specificity of 96.2%. In addition, the overall percent agreement and corresponding κ values were 96.7% (95% CI 95.6%-97.8%) and 0.93 for the Tp0100-based ELISA, 77.0% (95% CI 74.3%-79.7%) and 0.54 for the Tp1016-based ELISA, and 97.0% (95% CI 96.0%-98.0%) and 0.94 for the LICA Syphilis TP test, respectively. CONCLUSION: The recombinant T. pallidum protein Tp0100 shows promise as a novel diagnostic antigen in the serological tests for syphilis.

Public attitudes towards mobile health in Singapore: a cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: Smartphone-mediated mobile health (mHealth) may assist patients with medication adherence, and disease monitoring. This study aimed to describe awareness and usage of, and attitudes towards, mHealth among the public in Singapore who own a smartphone. It also aimed to identify factors that influenced the above in the study population. METHODS: An online cross-sectional survey was administered via convenience sampling in November 2017. Participants were included if they were at least 18 years old and owned a smartphone. No identifiable data was collected. Responses were summarized using descriptive statistics. Multiple logistic regression analysis was used to identify factors associated with awareness and usage of, and attitudes towards, mHealth. RESULTS: Participants (n=199) were mostly of Chinese ethnicity (84.4%), female (64.8%), young (mean age 33.7 years), and generally healthy (86.9% reported no chronic medical conditions). On average, participants were aware of 4.4 out of 7 mHealth functions and used 2.2 functions. Managing appointments, and fitness/diet tracking were the most well-known (93.5% and 82.4% respectively), and widely used (80.6% and 59.8% respectively) functions. A simple interface, data security, and being free to use, were rated as the most important factors influencing participants' willingness to use mHealth. Most (64.3%) participants were keen to learn to use mHealth in future, 49.7% believed mHealth could help improve their health, but only 13.1% were willing to pay for it. Being employed (OR 3.71) was associated with higher mHealth usage, adjusted for baseline smartphone usage. Participants living in non-subsidized housing were more keen to try (OR 3.18), and willing to pay (OR 3.36) for mHealth. CONCLUSIONS: Participants generally held positive attitudes towards mHealth, although usage was low. Lack of willingness to pay, and socioeconomic factors, are potential barriers to the widespread adoption of mHealth. Future research specifically involving patients is needed.

Performance and toxicity assessment of nanoscale zero valent iron particles in the remediation of contaminated soil: A review.

Nanoscale zero valent iron (nZVI) particles have been studied in recent years as a promising technology for the remediation of contaminated soil. Although the potential benefits of nZVI are considerable, there is a distinct need to identify possible risks after environmental exposure to nZVI. This work firstly introduced the remediation of nZVI for heavy metals and chlorinated organic compounds in contaminated soil. And the corresponding stabilization mechanisms were discussed. We also highlighted the factors affecting nZVI reactivity, including nZVI surface area, nZVI stabilizers, soil pH, soil organic matter and soil types. In addition, this review shows a critical overview of the current understanding of toxicity of nZVI particles to soil bacteria and fungi. The toxicity mechanisms, cellular defenses behaviors and the factors affecting the toxicity of nZVI were summarized. Finally, the remaining barriers to be overcome in materials development for environment application are also discussed.

An exploration of spatial human health risk assessment of soil toxic metals under different land uses using sequential indicator simulation.

A modified method was proposed which integrates the spatial patterns of toxic metals simulated by sequential indicator simulation, different exposure models and local current land uses extracted by remote-sensing software into a dose-response model for human health risk assessment of toxic metals. A total of 156 soil samples with a various land uses containing farm land (F1-F25), forest land (W1-W12) and residential land (U1-U15) were collected in a grid pattern throughout Xiandao District (XDD), Hunan Province, China. The total Cr and Pb in topsoil were analyzed. Compared with Hunan soil background values, the elevated concentrations of Cr were mainly located in the east of XDD, and the elevated concentrations of Pb were scattered in the areas around F1, F6, F8, F13, F14, U5, U14, W2 and W11. For non-carcinogenic effects, the hazard index (HI) of Cr and Pb overall the XDD did not exceed the accepted level to adults. While to children, Cr and Pb exhibited HI higher than the accepted level around some areas. The assessment results indicated Cr and Pb should be regarded as the priority pollutants of concern in XDD. The first priority areas of concern were identified in region A with a high probability (>0.95) of risk in excess of the accepted level for Cr and Pb. The areas with probability of risk between 0.85 and 0.95 in region A were identified to be the secondary priority areas for Cr and Pb. The modified method was proved useful due to its improvement on previous studies and calculating a more realistic human health risk, thus reducing the probability of excessive environmental management.

Degradation of atrazine by a novel Fenton-like process and assessment the influence on the treated soil.

This is the premier study reporting the remediation of atrazine contaminated soil with steel converter slag (SCS) catalyzed Fenton-like process. The effects of various operating parameters, such as SCS loads and H2O2 concentrations were evaluated with respect to the removal efficiency of atrazine. Results show the optimal SCS load and H2O2 concentration were 80gkg(-1) and 10%, respectably. The graded modified Fenton's oxidation with a 3-time addition of 10% H2O2 was able to remove 93.7% of total atrazine in the contaminated soil and maintain soil temperature within 50°C. In contrast to traditional Fenton treatment, a slight pH increase has been observed due to the addition of SCS. More importantly, experiment conducted at natural conditions with SCS gave the similar atrazine removal to the experiments with the other catalysts (e.g., FeSO4 and Fe2O3). One thing should be noted that after the treatment, dissolved organic carbon (DOC) content increased to 1.206gkg(-1) from an initial value of 0.339gkg(-1).

Pretreatment of apramycin wastewater by catalytic wet air oxidation.

The pretreatment technology of wet air oxidation (WAO) and coagulation and acidic hydrolysis for apramycin wastewater was investigated in this paper. The COD, apramycin, NH4+ concentration, and the ratio of BOD5/COD were analyzed, and the color and odor of the effluent were observed. WAO of apramycin wastewater, without catalyst and with RuO2/Al2O3 and RuO2-CeO2/Al2O3 catalysts, was carried out at degradation temperature of 200 degrees C and the total pressure of 4 MPa in a 1 L batch reactor. The result showed that the apramycin removals were respectively 50.2% and 55.0%, COD removals were 40.0% and 46.0%, and the ratio of BOD5/COD was increased to 0.49 and 0.54 with RuO2/Al2O3 and RuO2-CeO2/Al2O3 catalysts in catylytic wet air oxidation (CWAO) after the reaction of 150 min. With the pretreatment of coagulation and acidic hydrolysis, COD and apramycin removals were slight decreased, and the ratio of BOD5/COD was increased to 0.45, and the effluents was not suitable to biological treatment. The color and odor of the wastewater were effectively controlled and the reaction time was obviously shortened with WAO. HO2 may promote organic compounds oxidized in WAO of the apramycin wastewater. The addition of CeO2 could promote the activity and stability of RuO2/Al2O3 in WAO of apramycin wastewater.