A note on radix conversion for integers

A simple algorithm is presented for efficient computer conversion of integers from one radix to another. The method is shown to work for all radices and is also valid for multi-length and mixed-radix working.     

Second-hand tobacco smoke in public places in urban and rural China

Objective

To assess airborne nicotine concentrations as an indicator of second‐hand smoke (SHS) exposure in public places in both urban and rural areas of China.

Design

Measurement of vapour‐phase nicotine concentration using a common protocol in all locations. A total of 273 samplers were placed for 7 days in urban and rural areas of China, including Beijing and the capital city, and a county (rural) area of the following provinces: Sichuan (Chengdu/Mianzhu), Jiangxi (Nanchang/Anyi) and Henan (Zhengzhou/Xin''an).

Setting

Samplers were placed in hospitals, secondary schools, city government buildings, train stations, restaurants and entertainment establishments (internet cafes, mahjong parlours and karaoke bars) in each location.

Main outcome measure

The time‐weighted average airborne concentration of nicotine (μg/m³) was measured by gas chromatography.

Results

Airborne nicotine was detected in 91% of the locations sampled. Beijing had the highest nicotine concentrations in most indoor environments (median 3.01 μg/m³) and Chengdu had the lowest concentrations (median 0.11 μg/m³). Overall, restaurants and entertainment establishments had the highest nicotine concentrations (median 2.17 and 7.48 μg/m³, respectively). High nicotine concentrations were also found in government buildings and in train stations.

Conclusions

The data collected in this study provide evidence that SHS exposure is frequent in public places in China. Environmental nicotine concentrations in China provide evidence for implementation and enforcement of smoke‐free initiatives in public places in China and indicate the need for protecting the public from exposure to SHS.Tobacco use causes death and disease not only among those who actively smoke but also among those who are exposed to second‐hand smoke (SHS) in indoor environments.^1,2 Over the past two decades, evidence on the adverse health effects of SHS exposure has led to initiatives worldwide to reduce exposure in public places, workplaces, homes and transportation environments. Although cities and entire countries, including New York City and State, Italy, Ireland, Norway and Scotland, have passed legislation banning smoking in all public places, most countries and particularly the low‐income to middle‐income countries, such as China, do not have effective policies in place to reduce active and passive smoking. Making indoor environments smoke‐free has not been easy; in many countries, a majority of men smoke and the tobacco industry has vigorously attempted to counter the growing call for smoke‐free indoor environments. Industry efforts include attempts at discrediting scientific evidence on the health effects of SHS, subverting regulatory initiatives, and advancing ineffective alternatives to eliminate smoking indoors.³ In addition, many countries lack data documenting exposure of the population to SHS.China is a particularly critical nation in the global effort to control tobacco use. China has the largest population of smokers in the world: over 350 million of its 1.2 billion people.⁴ Governments, including the Chinese government, are increasingly becoming aware of the significant impact of the tobacco epidemic on their citizens.⁵In August 2006, the Chinese government ratified the World Health Organization''s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, and some Chinese cities, government departments and organisations have now adopted rules and regulations banning smoking in public places and workplaces. Recently, a deputy to the China legislature called for a ban on smoking in all public places.⁶ However, progress has been hindered by the high prevalence of smoking and a general view that smoking is acceptable.⁴ There is also concern about the possible negative economic impact of tobacco control policies, especially in the rural and less‐developed areas of China.To develop the required evidence for advancing tobacco control, we measured airborne nicotine concentrations in various locations across China. In this study, we report the results of an assessment of nicotine concentrations in schools, hospitals, government offices, train stations, facilities, restaurants and entertainment establishments in urban and rural areas of China.     

Darkfield-Confocal Microscopy detection of nanoscale particle internalization by human lung cells

Background  

Concerns over the health effects of nanomaterials in the environment have created a need for microscopy methods capable of examining the biological interactions of nanoparticles (NP). Unfortunately, NP are beyond the diffraction limit of resolution for conventional light microscopy (~200 nm). Fluorescence and electron microscopy techniques commonly used to examine NP interactions with biological substrates have drawbacks that limit their usefulness in toxicological investigation of NP. EM is labor intensive and slow, while fluorescence carries the risk of photobleaching the sample and has size resolution limits. In addition, many relevant particles lack intrinsic fluorescence and therefore can not be detected in this manner. To surmount these limitations, we evaluated the potential of a novel combination of darkfield and confocal laser scanning microscopy (DF-CLSM) for the efficient 3D detection of NP in human lung cells. The DF-CLSM approach utilizes the contrast enhancements of darkfield microscopy to detect objects below the diffraction limit of 200 nm based on their light scattering properties and interfaces it with the power of confocal microscopy to resolve objects in the z-plane.     

Ventilation rates and health: multidisciplinary review of the scientific literature

The scientific literature through 2005 on the effects of ventilation rates on health in indoor environments has been reviewed by a multidisciplinary group. The group judged 27 papers published in peer-reviewed scientific journals as providing sufficient information on both ventilation rates and health effects to inform the relationship. Consistency was found across multiple investigations and different epidemiologic designs for different populations. Multiple health endpoints show similar relationships with ventilation rate. There is biological plausibility for an association of health outcomes with ventilation rates, although the literature does not provide clear evidence on particular agent(s) for the effects. Higher ventilation rates in offices, up to about 25 l/s per person, are associated with reduced prevalence of sick building syndrome (SBS) symptoms. The limited available data suggest that inflammation, respiratory infections, asthma symptoms and short-term sick leave increase with lower ventilation rates. Home ventilation rates above 0.5 air changes per hour (h(-1)) have been associated with a reduced risk of allergic manifestations among children in a Nordic climate. The need remains for more studies of the relationship between ventilation rates and health, especially in diverse climates, in locations with polluted outdoor air and in buildings other than offices. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: Ventilation with outdoor air plays an important role influencing human exposures to indoor pollutants. This review and assessment indicates that increasing ventilation rates above currently adopted standards and guidelines should result in reduced prevalence of negative health outcomes. Building operators and designers should avoid low ventilation rates unless alternative effective measures, such as source control or air cleaning, are employed to limit indoor pollutant levels.     

A new approach to the reconstruction of contour lines extracted from topographic maps

It is known that after segmentation and morphological operations on topographic maps, gaps occur in contour lines. It is also well known that filling these gaps and reconstruction of contour lines with high accuracy is not an easy problem. In this paper, a nontrivial semi-automatic approach to solve this problem is proposed. The main idea of the proposed approach is based on local and geometric properties such as (1) parabolic and opposite directions, (2) the differences of y-ordinate of end points, (3) changing the directions of x-axis and y-ordinate to the nearest clockwise direction and (4) avoiding the use of the second end point of a small piece of any contour line in the same mask if its other end point is used. The proposed approach was implemented on the base of many topographic maps with different resolutions and complexity. The obtained results show that the proposed approach increases accuracy and performance.     

Indoor Air Pollution: A Public Health Perspective

In developed and developing countries, indoor air pollutionis gaining increasing prominence as a public health problem. Time-activity studies and exposure surveys have shown the dominant contributions of indoor environments to population exposures for many pollutants. Mounting epidemiological evidence documents adverse health effects of indoor pollutants and risk assessments indicate that indoor carcinogens may contribute substantially to the population's burden of lung and other cancers. Unacceptable indoor air quality has also been identified as a common cause of symptoms. This paper addresses the public health problem posed by indoor air pollution, offering a schema for categorizing adverse health effects of indoor air pollution, and considers the complexiry of estimating the full scope of the problem     

Hierarchical data structures and algorithms for computer graphics.II. Applications

For pt.I see ibid., vol.8, no.3, p.48-68, May (1988). Advanced applications for preliminary display methods are focused on, with emphasis on the octree. Topics include use of the quadtree as a basis for hidden-surface algorithms, parallel and perspective projection methods to display a collection of objects represented by an octree, and the use of octrees to facilitate such image-rendering techniques as ray tracing and radiosity     

The dissemination of psychological research.

Examined the extent to which the research of a group of psychologists was concerned with real-world issues and how they sought to make the findings known in light of J. Kupfersmid's (see record 1989-03023-001) treatment of the issue of psychologists' dissatisfaction with selections made for publication in professional journals. Whether on their own or in the hands of a psychologist, relevant studies rarely reached the desks of policymakers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Trends in alcohol-related mortality among New Mexico's American Indians, Hispanics, and non-Hispanic whites

Reduction of alcohol-related mortality is a national goal for health promotion and disease prevention. We conducted this analysis to determine whether trends in New Mexico's Hispanics, non-Hispanic Whites, and American Indians were consistent with national trends in alcohol-related mortality, and whether differences in drinking patterns could account for racial and ethnic differences in rates. Age-adjusted, race-specific, and ethnic-specific alcohol-related mortality rates and 95% confidence intervals were calculated for 5-year periods for 1958-1991 using New Mexico vital statistics data. We estimated the prevalence of acute and chronic at-risk drinking behaviors and abstinence from data collected by the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) for the period 1986-1992. We found that alcohol-related mortality rates varied substantially by race, ethnicity, sex, age, and calendar period. American Indians had the highest rates for both sexes. Rates increased sharply from the period 1958-1962 until the late 1970s and the early 1980s, and then began to decrease rapidly. However, during the most recent decade, the rates have followed contrasting trends in the three ethnic and racial groups. Although rates have continued to decline among non-Hispanic Whites, rates for Hispanics and American Indians have not declined, and still remain substantially higher than rates during the 1958-1962 period. Differences in at-risk drinking behaviors reported to the BRFSS do not explain the contrast in race-specific and ethnic-specific mortality rates. Although progress has been made in reducing national per capita alcohol consumption and alcohol-related mortality, certain high-risk racial and ethnic groups may not be sharing in the progress.     

Experience with software conversion

Experience with a program to convert from LISP 1.6 to INTERLISP is described. The conversion program was designed with two goals in mind. First, it had to be capable of being executed in either of the languages's environments and it had to yield identical results. Second, the speed of the converted program was to be approximately the same as the original program. This meant that the conversion process must be completed prior to execution of the converted program. The various constraints and considerations imposed by these goals are examined. In addition, aside from problems in finding INTERLISP analogs for various LISP 1.6 constructs, careful consideration must also be paid to input/output functions, escape characters, global variables, representation of numbers and different string implementations.