Background
Smoking rates are higher among adolescents in South Korea than among those in other Asian countries. Researchers have reported associations between the presence of licensed tobacco ...retailers and adolescent smoking rates. However, few researchers have examined the factors that influence adolescent smoking including those that are intrapersonal, interpersonal or related to the tobacco retailers’ environment.
Aim
The purpose of this study was to describe factors related to the students, the licensed tobacco retailers and the schools and how those factors are associated with adolescent smoking outcomes such as tobacco marketing receptivity, lifetime smoking and current smoking.
Methods
The survey data were gathered from 740 South Korean adolescents, and geographic data for 3488 licensed tobacco retailers were also used. Geographic Information Systems and multilevel modeling were used to describe the variables and determine the factors associated with smoking outcomes in the sample.
Results
The factors that influenced receptivity to tobacco marketing included the presence of peers who smoke and the frequencies of licensed tobacco retailers passed on the way to school. The factors that influenced lifetime smoking included gender, perceived economic status, weekly income, the presence of siblings or peers who smoke and frequencies of licensed tobacco retailers passed on the way to school. The factors that influenced current smoking included gender, weekly income, and the presence of siblings or peers who smoke.
Conclusions
These factors will guide adolescent tobacco prevention programs and policies.
Implications for nursing practice and health policy
The study's implications for nursing practice and health policy are that school nurses and public health nurses need to be encouraged to use retailer‐related factors in adolescent smoking‐prevention programs. There is also a need for zoning and licensing regulations to restrict licensed tobacco retailers in areas that adolescents frequent, including schools.
Neutrino oscillation experiments require a precise measurement of the neutrino energy. However, the kinematic detection of the final-state neutron in the neutrino interaction is missing in current ...neutrino oscillation experiments. The missing neutron kinematic detection results in a smaller detected neutrino energy than the true neutrino energy. A novel 3D-projection scintillator tracker, which consists of roughly ten million active cubes covered with an optical reflector, is capable of measuring the neutron kinetic energy and direction on an event-by-event basis using the time-of-flight technique thanks to the fast timing, fine granularity, and high light yield. The $\overline{v}$μ interactions tend to produce neutrons in the final state. By measuring the neutron kinetic energy, the $\overline{v}$μ energy can be reconstructed better, allowing a tighter incoming neutrino flux constraint. This article shows the detector's ability to reconstruct neutron kinetic energy and the $\overline{v}$μ flux constraint achieved by selecting the charged-current interactions without mesons or protons in the final state.
Hospital-based providers' willingness to report to work during an influenza pandemic is a critical yet under-studied phenomenon. Witte's Extended Parallel Process Model (EPPM) has been shown to be ...useful for understanding adaptive behavior of public health workers to an unknown risk, and thus offers a framework for examining scenario-specific willingness to respond among hospital staff.
We administered an anonymous online EPPM-based survey about attitudes/beliefs toward emergency response, to all 18,612 employees of the Johns Hopkins Hospital from January to March 2009. Surveys were completed by 3426 employees (18.4%), approximately one third of whom were health professionals.
Demographic and professional distribution of respondents was similar to all hospital staff. Overall, more than one-in-four (28%) hospital workers indicated they were not willing to respond to an influenza pandemic scenario if asked but not required to do so. Only an additional 10% were willing if required. One-third (32%) of participants reported they would be unwilling to respond in the event of a more severe pandemic influenza scenario. These response rates were consistent across different departments, and were one-third lower among nurses as compared with physicians. Respondents who were hesitant to agree to work additional hours when required were 17 times less likely to respond during a pandemic if asked. Sixty percent of the workers perceived their peers as likely to report to work in such an emergency, and were ten times more likely than others to do so themselves. Hospital employees with a perception of high efficacy had 5.8 times higher declared rates of willingness to respond to an influenza pandemic.
Significant gaps exist in hospital workers' willingness to respond, and the EPPM is a useful framework to assess these gaps. Several attitudinal indicators can help to identify hospital employees unlikely to respond. The findings point to certain hospital-based communication and training strategies to boost employees' response willingness, including promoting pre-event plans for home-based dependents; ensuring adequate supplies of personal protective equipment, vaccines and antiviral drugs for all hospital employees; and establishing a subjective norm of awareness and preparedness.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Background
No data exist regarding the sexually transmitted infection (STI) rate in adolescents aged 12–15 in South Korea. Only a Korean few studies have attempted to investigate the factors ...influencing sexually transmitted infections among adolescents.
Aim
The purpose of this study was to investigate the self‐reported sexually transmitted infection contraction rate and analyse individual and family factors that influence this rate among middle school students aged 12–15 in South Korea.
Methods
Using statistics from the 8th Korea Youth Risk Behavior Web‐based Survey, secondary data analysis was conducted. The study sample consisted of 714 individuals who had reported initiating sexual intercourse.
Results
The rate of self‐reported sexually transmitted contraction was 13.5%. The following factors predicted STI contraction: second year of middle school, excellent academic achievement, habitual or purposeful drug use, first intercourse before middle school, intercourse after drinking alcohol, weekly allowance, and living without family predicted sexually transmitted infection contraction.
Limitations
The parental data were collected by the self‐reported surveys in a cross‐sectional manner and questions of STI contraction and intercourse after drinking may have confused the subjects.
Conclusion
We need to utilize these predictors in providing adolescents with sexual health interventions and establishing adolescent sexual health policies.
Implications for Nursing and Health Policies
Increased sex education and employment of a school nurse in each middle school are needed. High‐risk students need to be monitored given the predictors of sexually transmitted infection contraction, and the school health personnel need to inform female students and their parents the importance of seeing a gynaecologist for regular check‐ups.
Terrorist use of a radiological dispersal device (RDD, or "dirty bomb"), which combines a conventional explosive device with radiological materials, is among the National Planning Scenarios of the ...United States government. Understanding employee willingness to respond is critical for planning experts. Previous research has demonstrated that perception of threat and efficacy is key in the assessing willingness to respond to a RDD event.
An anonymous online survey was used to evaluate the willingness of hospital employees to respond to a RDD event. Agreement with a series of belief statements was assessed, following a methodology validated in previous work. The survey was available online to all 18,612 employees of the Johns Hopkins Hospital from January to March 2009.
Surveys were completed by 3426 employees (18.4%), whose demographic distribution was similar to overall hospital staff. 39% of hospital workers were not willing to respond to a RDD scenario if asked but not required to do so. Only 11% more were willing if required. Workers who were hesitant to agree to work additional hours when required were 20 times less likely to report during a RDD emergency. Respondents who perceived their peers as likely to report to work in a RDD emergency were 17 times more likely to respond during a RDD event if asked. Only 27.9% of the hospital employees with a perception of low efficacy declared willingness to respond to a severe RDD event. Perception of threat had little impact on willingness to respond among hospital workers.
Radiological scenarios such as RDDs are among the most dreaded emergency events yet studied. Several attitudinal indicators can help to identify hospital employees unlikely to respond. These risk-perception modifiers must then be addressed through training to enable effective hospital response to a RDD event.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The threat of a catastrophic public health emergency causing life-threatening illness or injury on a massive scale has prompted extensive federal, state, and local preparedness efforts. Modeling ...studies suggest that an influenza pandemic similar to that of 1918 would require ICU and mechanical ventilation capacity that is significantly greater than what is available. Several groups have published recommendations for allocating life-support measures during a public health emergency. Because there are multiple ethically permissible approaches to allocating scarce life-sustaining resources and because the public will bear the consequences of these decisions, knowledge of public perspectives and moral points of reference on these issues is critical. Here we describe a critical care disaster resource allocation framework developed following a statewide community engagement process in Maryland. It is intended to assist hospitals and public health agencies in their independent and coordinated response to an officially declared catastrophic health emergency in which demand for mechanical ventilators exceeds the capabilities of all surge response efforts and in which there has been an executive order to implement scarce resource allocation procedures. The framework, built on a basic scoring system with modifications for specific considerations, also creates an opportunity for the legal community to review existing laws and liability protections in light of a specific disaster response process.
During a catastrophe, health-care providers may face difficult questions regarding who will receive limited life-saving resources. The ethical principles that should guide decision-making have been ...considered by expert panels but have not been well explored with the public or front-line clinicians. The objective of this study was to characterize the public's values regarding how scarce mechanical ventilators should be allocated during an influenza pandemic, with the ultimate goal of informing a statewide scare resource allocation framework.
Adopting deliberative democracy practices, we conducted 15 half-day community engagement forums with the general public and health-related professionals. Small group discussions of six potential guiding ethical principles were led by trained facilitators. The forums consisted exclusively of either members of the general public or health-related or disaster response professionals and were convened in a variety of meeting places across the state of Maryland. Primary data sources were predeliberation and postdeliberation surveys and the notes from small group deliberations compiled by trained note takers.
Three hundred twenty-four individuals participated in 15 forums. Participants indicated a preference for prioritizing short-term and long-term survival, but they indicated that these should not be the only factors driving decision-making during a crisis. Qualitative analysis identified 10 major themes that emerged. Many, but not all, themes were consistent with previously issued recommendations. The most important difference related to withholding vs withdrawing ventilator support.
The values expressed by the public and front-line clinicians sometimes diverge from expert guidance in important ways. Awareness of these differences should inform policy making.
In this study, push-out tests were conducted to investigate shear behaviour of FRP perfobond shear connector. The parameters influencing shear capacity of FRP perfobond shear connector are concrete ...dowel effect, shear resistance effect of the laterally reinforced FRP re- bar, and frictional effect between shear connector and concrete. The specimens were designed to consider these parameters. The specimens coated with sand to increase frictional resistance between the FRP re-bar and concrete. Based on the test results and the parameters, new equation was suggested to predict shear strength of FRP perfobond shear connectors. The predicted results and the experimental results were compared to check the feasibility of prediction.
(Lu1–xYx)2.94Al5O12:0.06Ce3+ (0 ≤ x ≤ 1.00) and (Lu1–yGdy)2.94Al5O12:0.06Ce3+ (0 ≤ y ≤ 0.75) phosphors are prepared by the sol−gel method. All the prepared phosphors are indexed as a cubic garnet ...crystal structure (Ia3‾d space group). The substitutions of Y3+ and Gd3+ for Lu3+ in the Lu3Al5O12:Ce3+ phosphors affect the environment of Ce3+ in the Lu(Ce)O8 dodecahedron and photoluminescence properties. In this work, to study the influence of lattice distortions on the emission wavelengths of the Y3+– and Gd3+–substituted phosphors, the lattice distortion factors and maximum emission wavelengths as functions of Y3+ and Gd3+ concentrations are investigated. The Y3+ and Gd3+ substitutions induce the lattice distortion around the Ce3+ ions and shift the emission band of Ce3+ towards a red spectral region. Through the photoluminescence and crystallographic studies, we propose empirical equations between the lattice distortion factors (dY and dGd) and the maximum emission wavelengths (λY and λGd) for the Y3+– and Gd3+–substituted phosphors as λY = 1343.67dY – 882.09 and λGd = 1703.79dGd – 1260.74, respectively. The Y3+– and Gd3+–substituted phosphors show tunable emission wavelength, which may have potential applications in white light–emitting diodes.
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•Y3+/Gd3+ substitutions induce the lattice distortion around Ce3+ ions.•Emission bands of Ce3+ are shifted towards a red region through Y3+/Gd3+ substitutions.•Correlations between lattice distortion factors and emission wavelengths are proposed.
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