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Breast cancer is a multifaceted disease and a leading cause of cancer morbidity and mortality in females across the globe. In 2020 alone, 2.3 million women were diagnosed and 685,000 died of breast cancer worldwide. With the number of diagnoses projected to increase to 3 million per year by 2040 it is essential that new methods of detection and disease stratification are sought to decrease this global cancer burden.Although significant improvements have been made in breast cancer diagnosis and treatment, the prognosis of breast cancer remains poor in some patient groups (i.e. triple negative breast cancer), necessitating research into better patient stratification, diagnosis and drug discovery. The UK Biobank, a comprehensive biomedical and epidemiological database with a wide variety of multiomics data (genomics, proteomics, metabolomics) offers huge potential to uncover groundbreaking discoveries in breast cancer research leading to improved patient stratification. Combining genomic, proteomic, and metabolic profiles of breast cancer in combination with histological classification, can aid treatment decisions through accurate diagnosis and prognosis prediction of tumor behaviour.Here, we systematically reviewed PubMed publications reporting the analysis of UK Biobank data in breast cancer research. Our analysis of UK Biobank studies in the past five years identified 125 publications, of which 76 focussed on genomic data analysis. Interestingly, only two studies reported the analysis of metabolomics and proteomics data, with none performing multiomics analysis of breast cancer. A meta-analysis of the 76 publications identified 2870 genetic variants associated with breast cancer across 445 genes. Subtype analysis revealed differential genetic alteration in 13 of the 445 genes and the identification of 59 well-established breast cancer genes. in differential pathways. Pathway interaction analyses illuminated their involvement in general cancer biomolecular pathways (e.g. DNA damage repair, Gene expression). While our meta-analysis only measured genetic differences in breast cancer due to current usage of UK Biobank data, minimal multi-omics analyses have been performed and the potential for harnessing multi-omics strategies within the UK Biobank cohort holds promise for unravelling the biological signatures of distinct breast cancer subtypes further in the future.

Abstract Purpose To address the care needs of older adults, it is important to identify and understand the forms of care support older adults received. This systematic review aims to examine the social networks of older adults receiving informal or formal care and the factors that influenced their networks. Methods A systematic review was conducted by searching six databases from inception to January 31, 2023. The review included primary studies focusing on older adults receiving long-term care, encompassing both informal and formal care. To assess the risk of bias in the included studies, validated appraisal tools specifically designed for different study types were utilized. Network analysis was employed to identify the grouping of study concepts, which subsequently formed the foundation for describing themes through narrative synthesis. Results We identified 121 studies relating to the formal and informal care of older adults’ networks. A variety of social ties were examined by included studies. The most commonly examined sources of care support were family members (such as children and spouses) and friends. Several factors were consistently reported to influence the provision of informal care, including the intensity of networks, reciprocity, and geographical proximity. In terms of formal care utilization, older age and poor health status were found to be associated with increased use of healthcare services. Additionally, physical limitations and cognitive impairment were identified as factors contributing to decreased social engagement. Conclusion This review found that older people were embedded within a diverse network. The findings of this review emphasize the importance of recognizing and incorporating the diversity of social networks in care plans and policies to enhance the effectiveness of interventions and improve the overall well-being of older adults.

Abstract Background Measurement of multimorbidity in research is variable, including the choice of the data source used to ascertain conditions. We compared the estimated prevalence of multimorbidity and associations with mortality using different data sources. Methods A cross-sectional study of SAIL Databank data including 2,340,027 individuals of all ages living in Wales on 01 January 2019. Comparison of prevalence of multimorbidity and constituent 47 conditions using data from primary care (PC), hospital inpatient (HI), and linked PC-HI data sources and examination of associations between condition count and 12-month mortality. Results Using linked PC-HI compared with only HI data, multimorbidity was more prevalent (32.2% versus 16.5%), and the population of people identified as having multimorbidity was younger (mean age 62.5 versus 66.8 years) and included more women (54.2% versus 52.6%). Individuals with multimorbidity in both PC and HI data had stronger associations with mortality than those with multimorbidity only in HI data (adjusted odds ratio 8.34 [95% CI 8.02-8.68] versus 6.95 (95%CI 6.79-7.12] in people with ≥ 4 conditions). The prevalence of conditions identified using only PC versus only HI data was significantly higher for 37/47 and significantly lower for 10/47: the highest PC/HI ratio was for depression (14.2 [95% CI 14.1–14.4]) and the lowest for aneurysm (0.51 [95% CI 0.5–0.5]). Agreement in ascertainment of conditions between the two data sources varied considerably, being slight for five (kappa

Abstract During the olfactory perception process, our olfactory receptors are thought to recognize specific chemical features. These features may contribute towards explaining our crossmodal perception. The physicochemical features of odors can be extracted using an array of gas sensors, also known as an electronic nose. The present study investigates the role that the physicochemical features of olfactory stimuli play in explaining the nature and origin of olfactory crossmodal correspondences, which is a consistently overlooked aspect of prior work. Here, we answer the question of whether the physicochemical features of odors contribute towards explaining olfactory crossmodal correspondences and by how much. We found a similarity of 49% between the perceptual and the physicochemical spaces of our odors. All of our explored crossmodal correspondences namely, the angularity of shapes, smoothness of textures, perceived pleasantness, pitch, and colors have significant predictors for various physicochemical features, including aspects of intensity and odor quality. While it is generally recognized that olfactory perception is strongly shaped by context, experience, and learning, our findings show that a link, albeit small (6–23%), exists between olfactory crossmodal correspondences and their underlying physicochemical features.

BackgroundFrailty is characterised by a reduced resilience to adversity. In this analysis we examined changes in frailty in people aged 50+ before and during a period of austere public spending in England.MethodsData from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing 2002-2018 were analysed. Associations between austerity and frailty were examined using (1) Multilevel interrupted times series analysis (ITSA); and (2) Accelerated longitudinal modelling comparing frailty trajectories in people of the same age in 2002 and 2012.ResultsThe analysis included 16,410 people (mean age 67 years, 55% women), with mean frailty index score of 0.16. Mean scores in women (0.16) where higher than in men (mean 0.14), and higher in the poorest tertile (mean 0.20) than the richest (mean 0.12). In the ITSA, frailty index scores increased more quickly during austerity than before, with the additional increase in frailty 2012-2018 being similar in magnitude to the difference in mean frailty score between people aged 65-69 and 70-74 years. Steeper increases in frailty after 2012 were experienced across the wealth-spectrum and in both sexes but were greater in the very oldest (80+). In the accelerated longitudinal analysis, frailty was lower in 2012 than 2002, but increased more rapidly in the 2012 cohort compared to the 2002 cohort; markedly so in people aged 80+.ConclusionThe period of austerity politics was associated with steeper increases in frailty with age compared to the pre-austerity period, consistent with previously observed increases in mortality.

Abstract Introduction Humans use discriminative touch to perceive texture through dynamic interactions with surfaces, activating low‐threshold mechanoreceptors in the skin. It was largely assumed that texture was processed in primary somatosensory regions in the brain; however, imaging studies indicate heterogeneous patterns of brain activity associated with texture processing. Methods To address this, we conducted a coordinate‐based activation likelihood estimation meta‐analysis of 13 functional magnetic resonance imaging studies (comprising 15 experiments contributing 228 participants and 275 foci) selected by a systematic review. Results Concordant activations for texture perception occurred in the left primary somatosensory and motor regions, with bilateral activations in the secondary somatosensory, posterior insula, and premotor and supplementary motor cortices. We also evaluated differences between studies that compared touch processing to non‐haptic control (e.g., rest or visual control) or those that used haptic control (e.g., shape or orientation perception) to specifically investigate texture encoding. Studies employing a haptic control revealed concordance for texture processing only in the left secondary somatosensory cortex. Contrast analyses demonstrated greater concordance of activations in the left primary somatosensory regions and inferior parietal cortex for studies with a non‐haptic control, compared to experiments accounting for other haptic aspects. Conclusion These findings suggest that texture processing may recruit higher order integrative structures, and the secondary somatosensory cortex may play a key role in encoding textural properties. The present study provides unique insight into the neural correlates of texture‐related processing by assessing the influence of non‐textural haptic elements and identifies opportunities for a future research design to understand the neural processing of texture.

Our brain constantly combines multisensory information from our surrounding environment. Odors for instance are often perceived with visual cues; these sensations interact to form our own subjective experience. This integration process can have a profound impact on the resulting experience and can alter our subjective reality. Crossmodal correspondences are the consistent associations between stimulus features in different sensory modalities. These correspondences are presumed to be bidirectional in nature and have been shown to influence our perception in a variety of different sensory modalities. Vision is dominant in our multisensory perception and can influence how we perceive information in our other senses, including olfaction. We explored the effect that different odors have on human color perception by presenting olfactory stimuli while asking observers to adjust a color patch to be devoid of hue (neutral gray task). We found a shift in the perceived neutral gray point to be biased toward warmer colors. Four out of five of our odors also trend toward their expected crossmodal correspondences. For instance, when asking observers to perform the neutral gray task while presenting the smell of cherry, the perceptually achromatic stimulus was biased toward a red-brown. Using an achromatic adjustment task, we were able to demonstrate a small but systematic effect of the presence of odors on human color perception.

IntroductionTexture changes occur frequently during real-world haptic explorations, but the neural processes that encode perceptual texture change remain relatively unknown. The present study examines cortical oscillatory changes during transitions between different surface textures during active touch.MethodsParticipants explored two differing textures whilst oscillatory brain activity and finger position data were recorded using 129-channel electroencephalography and a purpose-built touch sensor. These data streams were fused to calculate epochs relative to the time when the moving finger crossed the textural boundary on a 3D-printed sample. Changes in oscillatory band power in alpha (8–12 Hz), beta (16–24 Hz) and theta (4–7 Hz) frequency bands were investigated.ResultsAlpha-band power reduced over bilateral sensorimotor areas during the transition period relative to ongoing texture processing, indicating that alpha-band activity is modulated by perceptual texture change during complex ongoing tactile exploration. Further, reduced beta-band power was observed in central sensorimotor areas when participants transitioned from rough to smooth relative to transitioning from smooth to rough textures, supporting previous research that beta-band activity is mediated by high-frequency vibrotactile cues.DiscussionThe present findings suggest that perceptual texture change is encoded in the brain in alpha-band oscillatory activity whilst completing continuous naturalistic movements across textures.

BackgroundMultimorbidity is one of the greatest challenges facing health and social care systems globally. It is associated with high rates of health service use, adverse healthcare events, and premature death. Despite its importance, little is known about the effects of contextual determinants such as household and area characteristics on health and care outcomes for people with multimorbidity. This study protocol presents a plan for the examination of associations between individual, household, and area characteristics with important health and social care outcomes.MethodsThe study will use a cross-section of data from the SAIL Databank on 01 January 2019 and include all people alive and registered with a Welsh GP. The cohort will be stratified according to the presence or absence of multimorbidity, defined as two or more long-term conditions. Multilevel models will be used to examine covariates measured for individuals, households, and areas to account for social processes operating at different levels. The intra-class correlation coefficient will be calculated to determine the strength of association at each level of the hierarchy. Model outcomes will be any emergency department attendance, emergency hospital or care home admission, or mortality, within the study follow-up period.DiscussionHousehold and area characteristics might act as protective or risk factors for health and care outcomes for people with multimorbidity, in which case results of the analyses can be used to guide clinical and policy responses for effective targeting of limited resources.

What is the future of the ten ASEAN capitals? This article speculates upon how to answer this question by drawing on evidence of the advancing global weirding of the world’s ecology (especially as influenced by climate change) to outline ten diverse, graphically illustrated, scenarios for the ten capital cities of ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations). The varying, and often unique, socio-political background of each of these under-theorised urban settings, from Bandar Seri Begawan in Brunei to Vientiane in Laos, is subjected to imagined eco-catastrophic futures based upon the weird science now effusing from ecology, climatology and sustainability studies. This condition of global weirding is set to radically change the urban environments of these ten capitals. This stands in stark contrast to the strong desire by most of ASEAN governments to keep the socio-political structures of their nations from changing at all, which in turn, only exacerbates global weirding and its impacts. Each ASEAN urban future scenario presented here ends up being quite peculiar, horrific, radical, and awful. In that sense, they act as a warning for residents/leaders/theorists of these cities regarding their impending future if no proper form of socio-political or economic changes are entertained.

Objectives Multimorbidity is one of the greatest challenges facing healthcare internationally. Emergency department (ED) attendance and hospitalisation rates are higher in people with multimorbidity, but most research focuses on associations with individual characteristics, ignoring household or area mediators of service use.Design Systematic review reported using the synthesis without meta-analysis framework.Data sources Twelve electronic databases (1 January 2000–21 September 2021): MEDLINE/OVID, Embase, Global Health, PsycINFO, ASSIA, CAB Abstracts, Science Citation Index Expanded/ISI Web of Science, Scopus, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Sociological Abstracts, the Cochrane Library, and OpenGrey.Eligibility criteria Adults aged ≥16 years, with multimorbidity. Exposure(s) were household and/or area determinants of health. Outcomes were ED attendance and/or hospitalisation. The literature search was limited to publications in English.Data extraction and synthesis Independent double screening of titles and abstracts to select relevant full-text studies. Methodological quality was assessed using an adaptation of the Newcastle-Ottawa Quality Assessment Scale tool. Given high study heterogeneity, narrative synthesis was performed.Results After deduplication, 10 721 titles and abstracts were screened, and 142 full-text articles were reviewed, of which 10 were eligible for inclusion. In people with multimorbidity, household food insecurity was associated with hospitalisation (OR 1.58 (95% CI 1.06 to 2.36) in concordant multimorbidity). People with multimorbidity living in the most versus least deprived areas attended ED more frequently (8.9% (95% CI 8.6 to 9.1) in most versus 6.3% (95% CI 6.1 to 6.6) in least), had higher rates of hospitalisation (26% in most versus 22% in least), and higher probability of hospitalisation (6.4% (95% CI 5.8 to 7.2) in most versus 4.2% (95% CI 3.8 to 4.7) in least). There was non-conclusive evidence that household income is associated with ED attendance and hospitalisation. No statistically significant relationships were found between marital status, living with others with multimorbidity, or rurality with ED attendance or hospitalisation.Conclusions There is some evidence that household and area contexts mediate associations of multimorbidity with ED attendance and hospitalisation, but firm conclusions are constrained by the small number of studies published and study design heterogeneity. Further research is required on large population samples using robust analytical methods.PROSPERO registration number CRD42021283515.

Although food waste reduction has been recognized as an important method for managing the environment in the past, it has not received much attention from the hotel business sector. This article reveals that food waste hierarchy is an important strategy for hotels, as it helps them to reduce food waste at the generation point, while reducing food costs and protecting the environment. The process of food waste reduction can be holistically integrated with the distribution process. The study found that there were significant differences related with hotel size in the 7-step food distribution process. The mean distribution process of large hotels is higher than the one of medium and small hotels. The results also show that the hierarchy of food waste management motivates the hotel business sector to implement food waste reduction by ensuring that hotel operations achieve Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) goals in the form of Creating Shared Value (CSV). The primary goal of CSR is to align corporate and social values.

Real-time tele-haptic applications require capturing, compressing, transmitting, and displaying haptic information, which includes tactile and kinesthetic information. To achieve a high quality of service (QoS), real-time haptic data stream synchronization between local and remote environments is required. However, transmission of data over a computer network is often affected by network impairments, such as network delay, jitter, and packet loss, thus leading to system instability and poor performance. Current prediction algorithms for networked haptics comprise perceptual data reduction, traffic prioritization approaches, congestion control approaches, and radio resource allocation. However, the mentioned prediction algorithms either do not consider packet loss and time-varying delays (i.e., jitter) in their experimental setup, or only consider packet loss or delays. In real-world network environments, both packet loss and delays often occur simultaneously. In this work, a network adaptive Trust Strategy Prediction (TSP) algorithm was modified to work under both network impairments. The objective of the TSP is to maintain real-time haptic synchronization (haptic data stream synchronization) between the haptic interactive environments, by compensating network impairments using selective and specific prediction strategies, according to changes in the network’s characteristics. The experimental results demonstrate that TSP offers greater accuracy and smaller inconsistencies in terms of the predicted position, compared to the dead reckoning prediction and velocity estimation, which is often employed with filtering techniques.

When designing multisensorial experiences, robustly predicting the crossmodal perception of olfactory stimuli is a critical factor. We investigate the possibility of predicting olfactory crossmodal correspondences using the underlying physicochemical features. An electronic nose was tuned to the crossmodal perceptual axis of olfaction and was used to foretell people's crossmodal correspondences between odors and the angularity of shapes, smoothness of texture, perceived pleasantness, pitch, and colors. We found that the underlying physicochemical features of odors could be used to predict people's crossmodal correspondences. The human-machine perceptual dimensions that correlated well are the angularity of shapes (r = 0.71), the smoothness of texture (r = 0.82), pitch (r = 0.70), and the lightness of color (r = 0.59). The human-machine perceptual dimensions that did not correlate well (r < 0.50) are the perceived pleasantness (r = 0.20) and the hue of the color (r = 0.42 & 0.44). All perceptual dimensions except for the perceived pleasantness could be robustly predicted (p-values < 0.0001) including the hue of color. While it is recognized that olfactory perception is strongly shaped by learning and experience, our findings suggest that there is a systematic and predictable link between the physicochemical features of odorous stimuli and crossmodal correspondences. These findings may provide a crucial building block towards the digital transmission of smell and enhancing multisensorial experiences with better designs as well as more engaging, and enriched experiences.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a transformative technology, which is revolutionizing our everyday life by connecting everyone and everything together. The massive number of devices are preferably connected wirelessly because of the easy installment and flexible deployment. However, the broadcast nature of the wireless medium makes the information accessible to everyone including malicious users, which should hence be protected by encryption. Unfortunately, the secure and efficient provision of cryptographic keys for low-cost IoT devices is challenging; weak keys have resulted in severe security breaches, as evidenced by numerous notorious cyberattacks. This paper provides a comprehensive survey of lightweight security solutions conceived for IoT, relying on key generation from wireless channels. We first introduce the key generation fundamentals and protocols. We then examine how to apply this emerging technique to secure IoT and demonstrate that key generation relying on the randomness of wireless channels is eminently suitable for IoT. This paper reviews the extensive research efforts in the areas of theoretical modelling, simulation based validation and experimental exploration. We finally discuss the hurdles and challenges that key generation is facing and suggest future work to make key generation a reliable and secure solution to safeguard the IoT.

Molecular communication (MC) involves the transmission of information using particles (i.e., molecules). Research into the field has been dominated by micro-scale, and most of the effects of macro-scale communication have yet to be studied. In this paper, the modulation and transmission of MC at macro-scale are investigated. For the transmitter, an in-house-built odor generator was used, and as the detector, a mass spectrometer with a quadrupole mass analyzer was employed. Various 2-level, 4-level, and 8-level modulation schemes were tested experimentally. A simulation framework, developed for the first time, was used for comparison with the experimental results. It was shown that communication can be modeled using a variant of the advection-diffusion equation and that it gives good agreement with the experimental results. A symbol-error-rate (SER) analysis of both the experimental and simulation results was analyzed. It was found that increasing the distance has a detrimental effect on both the channel capacity and the SER, whereas velocity and diffusivity have a decreasing effect on the SER and an increasing effect on the channel capacity. A channel model was developed based on the asymmetric behavior of the communications, and the optimal sampling period was developed that subsequently permitted analysis of the ISI of the communications scheme.

Compared to traditional machines in computer networks, nano-bots in nano-networks face challenges due to the limitations of processing capabilities and power management. Under these limitations, these nano-bots can only perform simple tasks. Use of nano-bots can be applied to fields such as environmental, biomedical, and industrial fields. However, to use nano-bots in practice, their management and control in nano-networks should be established. In this paper, a network protocol for use in in-vivo communications applied to drug-delivery systems is proposed. Based on the circulatory system, three types of nano-bots are designed to be used in a ring topology network. The physical channel of the communication is discussed in detail, a docking process between nano-bots is proposed, a method to access the channel is presented and simulation results of the communication network are presented.

This study aimed to 1) explore the information flow by which supermarkets attempt to communicate with consumers, and 2) make a preliminary evaluation of the strategies used by supermarkets to promote organic food to consumers specifically within the Bangkok Metropolitan Area. Nine supermarket outlets located at the headquarters of nine supermarket chains were observed. Eleven informants from four supermarket chains were interviewed. The results found that supermarkets in Thailand provided rich information about organic food via standard certification, a Participatory Guarantee System, storylines and illustrations involving farmers. The retailers attempted to offer organic food in a way that is convenient to urban consumers' lifestyles. However, the retailers did not attempt to offer special discounts or marketing promotions since they believed that the consumers knowledgeable of organic food would be willing to pay premium price. Two valuable recommendations can be drawn from this research. Firstly, the retailers should provide more information about the formal control systems and authenticity of organic food in order to foster trust and to allow consumers to assess its benefits. Secondly, the retailers should continue offering ‘ready to eat’ organic food since it can be of significance in relation to the lifestyle of urban Thai consumers.

Molecular communication (MC) is a method where the transmission of information involves the use of chemicals or molecules instead of electromagnetic waves. The study of MC to date has mostly focused on the nano (nm) to micro (μm) scale and there have been only a few experimental studies on the subject of macro-scale. In this paper properties of macro-scale MC are experimented and studied. These are signal flow (q), carrier flow (Q), and bit duration (T). A mass spectrometer with a quadrupole mass analyzer is used as the detector and an in-house-built odor generator is used as the chemical pulse generator. This paper has shown that the signal energy has a quadratic relation to signal flow whereas the carrier flow has a non-linear relation to both the signal amplitude and the signal energy. The bit duration has shown that the system reaches a saturation point as the bit duration is increased and this effect also occurs in the leftover chemical signal after bit transmission. Finally, a mathematical model is developed for the first time to explain the molecular transmission on the macro-scale using advection-diffusion equation.

A portable mass spectrometer was coupled to a direct inlet membrane (DIM) probe and applied to the direct analysis of active fragrant compounds (3-methylbutyl acetate, 2-methyl-3-furanthiol, methyl butanoate, and ethyl methyl sulfide) in real time. These fragrant active compounds are commonly used in the formulation of flavours and fragrances. Results obtained show that the portable mass spectrometer with a direct membrane inlet can be used to detect traces of the active fragrant compounds in complex mixtures such as essential fragrant oils and this represents a novel in-situ analysis methodology. Limits of detection (LOD) in the sub-ppb range (< 2.5 pg) are demonstrated. Standard samples in the gaseous phase presented very good linearity with RSD % at 5 to 7 for the selected active fragrant compounds (i.e., isoamyl acetate, 2-methyl-3-furanthiol, methyl butanoate, and methyl ethyl sulphide). The rise and fall times of the DIM probe are in the ranges from 15 to 31 seconds and 23 to 41 seconds, respectively, for the standard model compounds analysed. The identities of the fragrance active compounds in essential oil samples (i.e., banana, tangerine, papaya, and blueberry muffin) were first identified by comparison with a standard fragrance compounds mixture using their major fragment peaks, the NIST standard reference library, and gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis. No sample preparation is required for analysis using a portable mass spectrometer coupled to a DIM probe, so the cycle time from ambient air sampling to the acquisition of the results is at least 65 seconds.

Key generation from the randomness of wireless channels is a promising alternative to public key cryptography for the establishment of cryptographic keys between any two users. This paper reviews the current techniques for wireless key generation. The principles, performance metrics and key generation procedure are comprehensively surveyed. Methods for optimizing the performance of key generation are also discussed. Key generation applications in various environments are then introduced along with the challenges of applying the approach in each scenario. The paper concludes with some suggestions for future studies.

This paper presents a thorough experimental study on key generation principles, i.e., temporal variation, channel reciprocity, and spatial decorrelation, through a testbed constructed by using wireless open-access research platform. It is the first comprehensive study through: 1) carrying out a number of experiments in different multipath environments, including an anechoic chamber, a reverberation chamber, and an indoor office environment, which represents little, rich, and moderate multipath, respectively; 2) considering static, object moving, and mobile scenarios in these environments, which represents different levels of channel dynamicity; and 3) studying two most popular channel parameters, i.e., channel state information and received signal strength. Through results collected from over a hundred tests, this paper offers insights to the design of a secure and efficient key generation system. We show that multipath is essential and beneficial to key generation as it increases the channel randomness. We also find that the movement of users/objects can help introduce temporal variation/randomness and help users reach an agreement on the keys. This paper complements existing research by experiments constructed by a new hardware platform.

Background: China is the biggest consumer of tobacco in the world, with a high prevalence of smoking especially among men. Along with the rapid demographic change in China, the burden of diseases attributable to health behaviors, particularly smoking is steadily increasing. So, smoking has become a major risk factor for mortality in China. Smoking behaviors may be related to migration processes, as a result of both who migrates and post-migration experiences related to socioeconomic position, stress and acculturation. Existing studies that have examined smoking and migration in China have, however, only focused on temporary rural-to-urban migrants and focused on relatively younger migrants. This paper examines the association between smoking behaviors and a comprehensive assessment of migration status in later-life in China.Methods: Using the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), a nationally representative dataset, this paper studies smoking behaviors of rural-to-urban migrants, urban-to-urban migrants, rural return migrants, and urban return migrants. We compare them with corresponding non-migrant groups in both rural and urban locations in China. Using a model that controls for demographic factors, early-life circumstances, socioeconomic factors, and factors related to migration, we examine both the decision to start smoking and the decision to quit smoking. In addition, we also address pre-migration selection in our analyses.Results: The results show rural-to-urban migrants are no more likely to start smoking compared with rural non-migrants, but they are more likely to quit smoking. While urban-to-urban migrants are more likely to start smoking compared with urban non-migrants, this effect is explained by the factors we include in the full model. Urban-to-urban migrants are, however, less likely to quit smoking. Moreover, both rural return migrants and urban return migrants seem to be more likely to start smoking and less likely to quit smoking compared with non-migrant groups.Conclusion: There are strong associations between migration status and later-life smoking behaviors in China; these associations vary greatly according to different migration status and point to populations and factors that public health activities should focus on.

The Fantasy Method of Urban Design is an experimental cross-disciplinary method that aims to predict the future social and technological forces impacting upon our cities, and to design such cities in line with these predictions. Utilizing fantasy is one way to expand the minds of design students beyond technical parameters or isolated spatial settings, and to expose them to a world of enlarged environmental narrative, social possibility, and political complexity. In this article, the Fantasy Method is described through three case studies inspired by three influential texts: Utopia, by Thomas More (1516); Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley (1818); and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams (1978). These case studies make use of these chosen works of fantasy not just as background ideas, but as ways to inspire narratives of change in the design of future cities. They show that to study the fantastic under the purview of future cities is not an escape into fantasy, but an active response to the many technological and industrial fantasies, both extravagant and excessive, that are so prevalent in our contemporary urban lives.

BACKGROUND:Frail older adults are heavy users of health and social care. In order to reduce the costs associated with frailty in older age groups, safe and cost-effective strategies are required that will reduce the incidence and severity of frailty. OBJECTIVE:We investigated whether self-reported intensity of physical activity (sedentary, mild, moderate or vigorous) performed at least once a week can significantly reduce trajectories of frailty in older adults who are classified as non-frail at baseline (Rockwood's Frailty Index [FI] ≤ 0.25). METHODS:Multi-level growth curve modelling was used to assess trajectories of frailty in 8649 non-frail adults aged 50 and over and according to baseline self-reported intensity of physical activity. Frailty was measured in five-year age cohorts based on age at baseline (50-54; 55-59; 60-64; 65-69; 70-74; 75-79; 80+) on up to 6 occasions, providing an average of 10 years of follow-up. All models were adjusted for baseline sex, education, wealth, cohabitation, smoking, and alcohol consumption. RESULTS:Compared with the sedentary reference group, mild physical activity was insufficient to significantly slow the progression of frailty, moderate physical activity reduced the progression of frailty in some age groups (particularly ages 65 and above) and vigorous activity significantly reduced the trajectory of frailty progression in all older adults. CONCLUSION:Healthy non-frail older adults require higher intensities of physical activity for continued improvement in frailty trajectories.

The security of the Internet of Things (IoT) is receiving considerable interest as the low power constraints and complexity features of many IoT devices are limiting the use of conventional cryptographic techniques. This article provides an overview of recent research efforts on alternative approaches for securing IoT wireless communications at the physical layer, specifically the key topics of key generation and physical layer encryption. These schemes can be implemented and are lightweight, and thus offer practical solutions for providing effective IoT wireless security. Future research to make IoT-based physical layer security more robust and pervasive is also covered.

The IEEE Std 802.15.6 is an international standard for wireless body area networks (WBANs). It contains many aspects of communications, and also provides security services, since some communications in WBANs can carry sensitive information. In this standard, the password authenticated association is a protocol for two participants to identify each other and establish a new master key based on a pre-shared short password. However, recent research shows that this protocol is vulnerable to several attacks. In this paper, we propose an improved protocol which can resist all of these attacks. Moreover, the improved protocol alleviates computational burden on one side of the two participants, the node, which is usually less powerful compared with the other side, the hub.

Haptic information originates from a different human sense (touch), therefore the quality of service (QoS) required to support haptic traffic is significantly different from that used to support conventional real-time traffic such as voice or video. Each type of network impairment has different (and severe) impacts on the user's haptic experience. There has been no specific provision of QoS parameters for haptic interaction. Previous research into distributed haptic virtual environments (DHVEs) have concentrated on synchronization of positions (haptic device or virtual objects), and are based on client-server architectures. We present a new peer-to-peer DHVE architecture that further extends this to enable force interactions between two users whereby force data are sent to the remote peer in addition to positional information. The work presented involves both simulation and practical experimentation where multimodal data is transmitted over a QoS-enabled IP network. Both forms of experiment produce consistent results which show that the use of specific QoS classes for haptic traffic will reduce network delay and jitter, leading to improvements in users' haptic experiences with these types of applications.

Environmental philosophy contains fractious elements, two of these being social ecology and deep ecology. This study highlights and elaborates upon the fact that social ecology and deep ecology actually have more in common than their respective proponents care to acknowledge, and identifies a major barrier between them which has been with environmental philosophy since its inception some 30 years ago and still persists to this day, namely the biocentric-anthropocentric divide.