Project description:INTRODUCTION:Young adults generally do not perceive waterpipe tobacco smoking (WTS) to be addictive. Underlying reasons for these false perceptions have received limited research attention and little is known about effective WTS prevention messaging. This study examined perceptions of the addictiveness of WTS among young adults and ascertained their feedback on WTS prevention message content. METHODS:Young adult (n=44, Mean [M] age 25.3, SD 2.7, range 18-30) waterpipe tobacco users were recruited online for a cross-sectional survey. Closed-ended measures assessed demographics, waterpipe use, other tobacco consumption, and perceived addictiveness of WTS. Open-ended items assessed perceptions of WTS and ascertained feedback on WTS prevention message content. Quantitative data were analyzed descriptively. Open-ended data were coded to identify emerging themes. RESULTS:Participants reported low perceived addictiveness of WTS (Mean 2.0, SD 0.9, range 1- not at all, 4 - very), perceived chances of becoming addicted (Mean 3.0, SD 1.6, range 1- no chance, 7- certain), and desire to quit (Mean 3.0, SD 1.8, range 1- not at all, 7- very). In open-ended responses, participants indicated social WTS does not lead to addiction and believe it is easy to quit. Some expressed concerns that WTS addiction may lead to health harms, social stigma, and financial costs. Participants indicated messages using vivid imagery and conveying negative health effects could motivate cessation. CONCLUSIONS:Young adults view that WTS is not addictive, particularly related to use in social settings. Research can build from this study by developing and testing messages to motivate WTS cessation in young adults.
Project description:IntroductionWaterpipe tobacco smoking continues to show increasing popularity, especially among individuals between 18 and 22 years old. Waterpipe tobacco smoke (WTS) is a mixture of particulates and gases formed from the combustion of the charcoal and volatilisation and humidification of the tobacco+humectant+flavouring substrate known as shisha or mu'assel. As such, variation in the configuration of the waterpipe may affect the particles produced. Our study focuses on the effects of waterpipe size on the physical properties and cytotoxicity of the smoke produced.MethodsShisha type and headspace volume were held constant and a modified Beirut puff protocol was followed while the size of the waterpipe was varied. Particle concentrations and size distributions were measured using a TSI Engine Exhaust Particle Sizer. Type II alveolar cells were exposed to smoke at the air-liquid interface and two metrics of cell health analysed.ResultsIn a 30 min session, we observed a decrease in total particle concentration (1014-1013) and mass (10 000-2800 mg/m3) and an increase in particle size (125-170 nm) as pipe height increases from 22 to 55 cm and bowl size from 300 to 1250 mL. Smoke from all pipe sizes caused decreases in lysosomal function (>40%) and membrane integrity (>60%) 24 hours post 57 min exposure, and meet the National Institutes of Health definition of a cytotoxic agent (≥30% decrease in cell viability).ConclusionSmoke from waterpipes of all sizes causes significant alveolar cellular harm, indicating that this device needs regulation as a hazard to human health.
Project description:Analyzing data representing multifarious trajectories is central to the many fields in Science and Engineering; for example, trajectories representing a tennis serve, a gymnast's parallel bar routine, progression/remission of disease and so on. We present a novel geometric algorithm for performing statistical analysis of trajectories with distinct number of samples representing longitudinal (or temporal) data. A key feature of our proposal is that unlike existing schemes, our model is deployable in regimes where each participant provides a different number of acquisitions (trajectories have different number of sample points or temporal span). To achieve this, we develop a novel method involving the parallel transport of the tangent vectors along each given trajectory to the starting point of the respective trajectories and then use the span of the matrix whose columns consist of these vectors, to construct a linear subspace in R m . We then map these linear subspaces (possibly of distinct dimensions) of R m on to a single high dimensional hypersphere. This enables computing group statistics over trajectories by instead performing statistics on the hypersphere (equipped with a simpler geometry). Given a point on the hypersphere representing a trajectory, we also provide a "reverse mapping" algorithm to uniquely (under certain assumptions) reconstruct the subspace that corresponds to this point. Finally, by using existing algorithms for recursive Fréchet mean and exact principal geodesic analysis on the hypersphere, we present several experiments on synthetic and real (vision and medical) data sets showing how group testing on such diversely sampled longitudinal data is possible by analyzing the reconstructed data in the subspace spanned by the first few principal components.
Project description:This work provides insights on waterpipe tobacco and waterpipe charcoal as potential sources of environmental toxicants. Selected harmful and potentially harmful constituents (HPHCs) from ten U.S. commercial waterpipe tobacco filler products (before and after electric heating) and five waterpipe charcoal products (before and after burning) were investigated. The differences in quantities of HPHCs between the evaluated products appear to be affected by raw material properties and/or the manufacturing processes involved in product production. Trace metal quantities in waterpipe tobacco and charcoal products were observed after heating or burning conditions compared to unheated or unburned conditions, which could impact the environment through the generation of toxic tobacco product waste. This study demonstrates that waterpipe tobacco and waterpipe charcoal contain substantial quantities of benzo[a]pyrene (B[a]P) and trace metals (i.e., selenium, arsenic, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, lead, nickel) before use and that extensive and varied changes in trace metal quantities take place as a result of heating, and more studies are needed to estimate the magnitude of the environmental impact of waterpipe tobacco use.
Project description:IntroductionThis study investigated the immediate effects of brief education messages delivered online about harms and addictiveness of waterpipe tobacco use among young adult waterpipe users aged 18 to 30 years.MethodsParticipants (n = 327, mean age 24.8 years, 62.1% male, 77.6% white, 67.8% used waterpipe monthly, 26.4% weekly, 5.8% daily) were recruited online and randomized to one of three experimental conditions: (1) Control condition viewing no messages; (2) Harms condition viewing messages about harms of waterpipe tobacco; (3) Harms and addiction condition viewing messages about harms and addictiveness of waterpipe tobacco. Outcomes included perceived harm and addictiveness of waterpipe, worry about harm and addiction, and desire to quit.ResultsCompared to the control condition, participants in the harms condition reported significantly greater perceived harm and addictiveness of waterpipe relative to cigarettes, perceived risk of harm and addiction, worry about harm and addiction, and desire to quit. There were few significant differences in these outcomes between participants in the harms condition and the harms and addiction condition. Mediation analyses suggest waterpipe tobacco use harm messages may increase desire to quit by producing greater worry about harm and addiction.ConclusionsBrief education messages about waterpipe tobacco use harm increased young adult's perceptions of harm and addictiveness of waterpipe tobacco use and generated stronger desire to quit. The waterpipe tobacco use addiction messages tested had little added impact. Studies should prospectively examine the real-world impact of waterpipe tobacco use harm messages and investigate more effective strategies for designing addiction messages.ImplicationsThis study demonstrates that brief education messages about waterpipe tobacco use harm can increase young adult waterpipe tobacco user's perceptions of harm and addictiveness of waterpipe tobacco use and generate stronger desire to quit. The findings indicate messages on addictiveness of waterpipe tobacco use have no added impact on these outcomes.
Project description:Eye tracking is used widely to investigate attention and cognitive processes while performing tasks in electronic medical record (EMR) systems. We explored a novel application of eye tracking to collect training data for a machine learning-based clinical decision support tool that predicts which patient data are likely to be relevant for a clinical task. Specifically, we investigated in a laboratory setting the accuracy of eye tracking compared to manual annotation for inferring which patient data in the EMR are judged to be relevant by physicians. We evaluated several methods for processing gaze points that were recorded using a low-cost eye-tracking device. Our results show that eye tracking achieves accuracy and precision of 69% and 53%, respectively compared to manual annotation and are promising for machine learning. The methods for processing gaze points and scripts that we developed offer a first step in developing novel uses for eye tracking for clinical decision support.
Project description:BackgroundThe wide range of ability and disability in ASD creates a need for tools that parse the phenotypic heterogeneity into meaningful subtypes. Using eye tracking, our past studies revealed that when presented with social and geometric images, a subset of ASD toddlers preferred viewing geometric images, and these toddlers also had greater symptom severity than ASD toddlers with greater social attention. This study tests whether this "GeoPref test" effect would generalize across different social stimuli.MethodsTwo hundred and twenty-seven toddlers (76 ASD) watched a 90-s video, the Complex Social GeoPref test, of dynamic geometric images paired with social images of children interacting and moving. Proportion of visual fixation time and number of saccades per second to both images were calculated. To allow for cross-paradigm comparisons, a subset of 126 toddlers also participated in the original GeoPref test. Measures of cognitive and social functioning (MSEL, ADOS, VABS) were collected and related to eye tracking data. To examine utility as a diagnostic indicator to detect ASD toddlers, validation statistics (e.g., sensitivity, specificity, ROC, AUC) were calculated for the Complex Social GeoPref test alone and when combined with the original GeoPref test.ResultsASD toddlers spent a significantly greater amount of time viewing geometric images than any other diagnostic group. Fixation patterns from ASD toddlers who participated in both tests revealed a significant correlation, supporting the idea that these tests identify a phenotypically meaningful ASD subgroup. Combined use of both original and Complex Social GeoPref tests identified a subgroup of about 1 in 3 ASD toddlers from the "GeoPref" subtype (sensitivity 35%, specificity 94%, AUC 0.75.) Replicating our previous studies, more time looking at geometric images was associated with significantly greater ADOS symptom severity.ConclusionsRegardless of the complexity of the social images used (low in the original GeoPref test vs high in the new Complex Social GeoPref test), eye tracking of toddlers can accurately identify a specific ASD "GeoPref" subtype with elevated symptom severity. The GeoPref tests are predictive of ASD at the individual subject level and thus potentially useful for various clinical applications (e.g., early identification, prognosis, or development of subtype-specific treatments).
Project description:Objectives This study aimed to examine public discussions of waterpipe tobacco smoking, as well as the potential associations of different waterpipe flavors with health symptoms, using Reddit data. Study design This is an observational infodemiology study. Methods Using keywords such as “waterpipe”, “hookah”, and “shisha”, Reddit posts were extracted from Reddit Archive (pushshift.io) between February 1, 2016, and December 31, 2020. Temporal analysis was used to understand the longitudinal trend of the discussions about waterpipe tobacco smoking. Topic modeling using the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) model was performed to examine the topics on waterpipe tobacco. We estimated the conditional probability of having each health problem for each given waterpipe flavor. Results The discussion of waterpipe on Reddit was slowly decreasing from 2016 to 2018 and surged until May 2020. The fruit was the most popular waterpipe flavor and the neurological symptom was the most mentioned health category in waterpipe-related Reddit posts. The most popular topics included “Friends spending time together at night with waterpipe smoking”, “Playing games and smoking waterpipe at a hookah bar”, and “Discussing waterpipe flavors and related products”. Some waterpipe flavors were more associated with certain health problems than others. For example, mint/menthol flavor had a high probability to be associated with symptoms related to throat and mouth. Conclusion This study provided longitudinal surveillance of waterpipe tobacco smoking discussed on Reddit. We showed the potential relationship between waterpipe flavors and health symptoms, which provides preliminary evidence about the potential health effects of waterpipe tobacco smoking.
Project description:ObjectiveIn this paper we synthesize the evidence from eye tracking research in tobacco control to inform tobacco regulatory strategies and tobacco communication campaigns.MethodsWe systematically searched 11 databases for studies that reported eye tracking outcomes in regards to tobacco regulation and communication. Two coders independently reviewed studies for inclusion and abstracted study characteristics and findings.ResultsEighteen studies met full criteria for inclusion. Eye tracking studies on health warnings consistently showed these warnings often were ignored, though eye tracking demonstrated that novel warnings, graphic warnings, and plain packaging can increase attention toward warnings. Eye tracking also revealed that greater visual attention to warnings on advertisements and packages consistently was associated with cognitive processing as measured by warning recall.ConclusionsEye tracking is a valid indicator of attention, cognitive processing, and memory. The use of this technology in tobacco control research complements existing methods in tobacco regulatory and communication science; it also can be used to examine the effects of health warnings and other tobacco product communications on consumer behavior in experimental settings prior to the implementation of novel health communication policies. However, the utility of eye tracking will be enhanced by the standardization of methodology and reporting metrics.
Project description:Experimental techniques for the investigation of three-dimensional (3D) genome organization are being developed at a fast pace. Currently, the associated computational methods are mostly specific to the individual experimental approach. Here we present a general statistical framework that is widely applicable to the analysis of genomic contact maps, irrespective of the data acquisition and normalization processes. Within this framework DNA-DNA contact data are represented as a complex network, for which a broad number of directly applicable methods already exist. In such a network representation, DNA segments and contacts between them are denoted as nodes and edges, respectively. Furthermore, we present a robust method for generating randomized contact networks that explicitly take into account the inherent 3D nature of the genome and serve as realistic null-models for unbiased statistical analyses. By integrating a variety of large-scale genome-wide datasets we demonstrate that meiotic crossover sites display enriched genomic contacts and that cohesin-bound genes are significantly colocalized in the yeast nucleus. We anticipate that the complex network framework in conjunction with the randomization of DNA-DNA contact networks will become a widely used tool in the study of nuclear architecture.