Declining ambient water phosphorus concentrations in Massachusetts' rivers from 1999 to 2013: Environmental protection works.

Over the last century, nutrient concentrations in streams, rivers, lakes and ponds have increased substantially in the United States. Elevated phosphorus levels are a concern due to their ability to cause changes in freshwater ecosystems that are detrimental to humans and wildlife. In the present study, long-term trends in total phosphorus (TP) concentrations from 20 rivers in central Massachusetts from 1999 to 2013 were investigated.

Toxicity of Potassium Chloride Compared to Sodium Chloride for Zebra Mussel Decontamination.

The use of chemicals to decontaminate watercraft and/or equipment after exposure to zebra mussels Dreissena polymorpha is one method of decontamination that has been recommended by multiple government agencies in the United States. The ideal chemical to be used for decontamination would be inexpensive and easily obtained, would have no or limited effect on nontarget species, and would be relatively environmentally friendly. Two chemicals that have been tested are potassium chloride (KCl) and sodium chloride (NaCl).

Rasch validation of the Chinese parent-child interaction scale (CPCIS).

Background: Proper parent-child interaction is crucial for child development, but an assessment tool in Chinese is currently lacking. This study aimed to develop and validate a parent-reported parent-child interaction scale for Chinese preschool children.

Methods: The Chinese parent-child interaction scale (CPCIS) was designed by an expert panel based on the literature and clinical observations in the Chinese context.

A prospective cohort study to investigate parental stress and child health in low-income Chinese families: protocol paper.

Introduction: Chronic stress has adverse effects on health. Adults and children from low-income families are subject to multiple sources of stress. Existing literature about economic hardship mostly focuses on either adults or children but not both.

Acquired factor V deficiency in a patient with myeloma and amyloidosis.

Introduction: We describe our experience with managing an unusual case of acquired Factor V deficiency (aFVd) in a myeloma patient with demonstrated amyloidosis.

Methods: Following diagnosis, records of previous investigations were sought. Specific clotting factors and inhibitors were tested.

Integrating Functional Analysis in the Next-Generation Sequencing Diagnostic Pipeline of RASopathies.

RASopathies are a group of heterogeneous conditions caused by germline mutations in RAS/MAPK signalling pathway genes. With next-generation sequencing (NGS), sequencing capacity is no longer a limitation to molecular diagnosis. Instead, the rising number of variants of unknown significance (VUSs) poses challenges to clinical interpretation and genetic counselling.

Rotational Pedicle Myocutaneous Forearm Fillet Flap Used to Fill Forequarter Amputation Defect: Indications and Uses.

A full-thickness fourth-degree burn to a large area of the upper extremity may require a forequarter amputation. Whereas our case describes a burn injury, forequarter amputations may more commonly be done in oncological surgery. In addition to the challenge of providing well-vascularized tissue coverage, the burn patient may also pose the complication of respiratory compromise in a systemically ill person.

Saving for a Better Retirement: How Risk Attitudes Affect Choice of Retirement Scheme.

Over 3 million people in Hong Kong and 21 million people in the UK are saving for retirement under the mandatory provident fund and individual savings account schemes, respectively. Yet, we know little about how individual preferences, such as risk attitudes (risk-seeking and risk-averse) that are known to impact highly consequential decisions in a variety of real-world contexts, impact retirement investment choices. In two experimental studies (Study 1-Hong Kong sample and Study 2-United Kingdom sample), we show that personal risk attitudes were a strong predictor of the profile of retirement investment portfolios.

Simultaneous inference of phenotype-associated genes and relevant tissues from GWAS data via Bayesian integration of multiple tissue-specific gene networks.

Although genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have successfully identified thousands of genomic loci associated with hundreds of complex traits in the past decade, the debate about such problems as missing heritability and weak interpretability has been appealing for effective computational methods to facilitate the advanced analysis of the vast volume of existing and anticipated genetic data. Towards this goal, gene-level integrative GWAS analysis with the assumption that genes associated with a phenotype tend to be enriched in biological gene sets or gene networks has recently attracted much attention, due to such advantages as straightforward interpretation, less multiple testing burdens, and robustness across studies. However, existing methods in this category usually exploit non-tissue-specific gene networks and thus lack the ability to utilize informative tissue-specific characteristics.

Scalable multi-sample single-cell data analysis by Partition-Assisted Clustering and Multiple Alignments of Networks.

Mass cytometry (CyTOF) has greatly expanded the capability of cytometry. It is now easy to generate multiple CyTOF samples in a single study, with each sample containing single-cell measurement on 50 markers for more than hundreds of thousands of cells. Current methods do not adequately address the issues concerning combining multiple samples for subpopulation discovery, and these issues can be quickly and dramatically amplified with increasing number of samples.

The Influence of Race on Plasma Thrombin Generation In Healthy Subjects In Singapore.

Race is touted as an independent risk factor for venous thromboembolism (VTE), although the basis for this is varied and contentious. Comparison of plasma thrombin generation (TG) using calibrated automated thrombogram (CAT) across races offers a modality that objectively measures global hemostatic function to evaluate this influence. Direct comparative data across races are currently not available.

Convergence rates of a partition based Bayesian multivariate density estimation method.

We study a class of non-parametric density estimators under Bayesian settings. The estimators are obtained by adaptively partitioning the sample space. Under a suitable prior, we analyze the concentration rate of the posterior distribution, and demonstrate that the rate does not directly depend on the dimension of the problem in several special cases.

Childhood Obesity and Physical Activity-Friendly School Environments.

Objective: Childhood obesity may be related to school environment, but previous studies often focused on food environment only. This study aimed to examine the relationship between school physical activity environment and childhood obesity.

Study Design: This is a cross-sectional study with multilevel data collected on school physical activity environment using teacher questionnaires, students' growth, and obesity status from electronic health records, and neighborhood socioeconomic status from census data.

A Sports-Based Youth Development Program, Teen Mental Health, and Physical Fitness: An RCT.

Objectives: To assess the effectiveness of a positive youth development (PYD)-based sports mentorship program on the physical and mental well-being of adolescents recruited in a community setting.

Methods: This is a randomized controlled trial in which we recruited students from 12 secondary schools in Hong Kong, China. Participants were randomly assigned in a 1:1 ratio to an intervention or a control arm after stratification for school from October 2013 to June 2014.

A simple, compact, low-cost, highly efficient thermometer based on green fluorescence of Er/Yb-codoped NaYF microcrystals.

We developed a highly efficient optical thermometer based on intensity ratio of upconversion green fluorescence of Er/Yb-codoped NaYF microcrystals. The sensor consists simply of a 980nm laser diode, one narrow-band interference filter, two lenses, one Si-photocell and one multimeter, while being without use of spectrometer and additional electronics. The device not only has a simple, compact structure (hence a low cost), but also displays highly efficient sensing performance, characterized by large signal-to-noise ratio due to strong fluorescence intensity, high thermal resolution and sensitivity, which have the values 1.

Maternal mental quality of life mediates the associations between intimate partner abuse against mothers and their children's behaviours and quality of life in low-income Chinese families.

Purpose: To explore the association between maternal intimate partner abuse (IPA) and their children's health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and behavioural problem, and to establish a mediation model and investigate the mediating role of mothers' HRQOL on this association.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 197 mothers of 227 children (112 boys and 115 girls) from low-income Chinese families. The mothers were asked to complete the 5-item abuse assessment screen questionnaire for the presence of IPA, the Chinese (Hong Kong) version of 12-item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-12) for their HRQOL and a structured socio-demographics questionnaire.

A randomized, double-blind, placebo- controlled study on the anti-haemostatic effects of Curcuma longa, Angelica sinensis and Panax ginseng.

Purpose: Herbs with "blood-activating" properties by traditional medicine theory often raise concerns for their possible anti-platelet or anticoagulation effects based on reports from in vitro studies. Such herbs have been implicated for bleeding manifestations based on only anecdotal reports. In particular, the combination of such herbs with anti-platelet agents is often empirically advised against despite lack of good clinical evidence.

A mixed-methods study to explore the supportive care needs of breast cancer survivors.

Objective: Needs assessment is the essence of quality cancer survivorship care. The aim of this study was to explore the supportive care needs of breast cancer survivors (BCS) in the first 5 years post treatment.

Methods: A mixed-methods approach was employed.

Modeling the causal regulatory network by integrating chromatin accessibility and transcriptome data.

Cell packs a lot of genetic and regulatory information through a structure known as chromatin, i.e. DNA is wrapped around histone proteins and is tightly packed in a remarkable way.

Gaining comprehensive biological insight into the transcriptome by performing a broad-spectrum RNA-seq analysis.

RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) is an essential technique for transcriptome studies, hundreds of analysis tools have been developed since it was debuted. Although recent efforts have attempted to assess the latest available tools, they have not evaluated the analysis workflows comprehensively to unleash the power within RNA-seq. Here we conduct an extensive study analysing a broad spectrum of RNA-seq workflows.

Stock Market Fluctuations and Self-Harm among Children and Adolescents in Hong Kong.

Although a few studies investigated the impact of stock market fluctuations on population health, the question of whether stock market fluctuations have an impact on self-harm in children and adolescents remain unanswered. This study therefore investigated the association between stock market fluctuations and self-harm among children and adolescents in Hong Kong. Daily self-harm attendance records were retrieved from all 18 local Accident and Emergency Departments (AED) from 2001 to 2012.

COSINE: non-seeding method for mapping long noisy sequences.

Third generation sequencing (TGS) are highly promising technologies but the long and noisy reads from TGS are difficult to align using existing algorithms. Here, we present COSINE, a conceptually new method designed specifically for aligning long reads contaminated by a high level of errors. COSINE computes the context similarity of two stretches of nucleobases given the similarity over distributions of their short k-mers (k = 3-4) along the sequences.