E-cigarettes and smoking cessation among adolescent smokers.

Smokers of any age can reap substantial health benefits from quitting or reducing their smoking. E-cigarettes have been promoted as a potentially promising product for tobacco harm reduction because e-cigarettes deliver nicotine vapor without many of the hazardous chemical combustion byproducts produced by combustible cigarette smoking. However, there remains an ongoing debate on whether the use of e-cigarettes is effective in combustible cigarette smoking cessation or reduction in both adolescents and adults. Our study uses data from the 2015 (baseline) and from the 2017 (follow-up) waves of the Taiwan Adolescent to Adult Longitudinal Study (TAALS), which is a large nationwide representative cohort study of health behaviors among adolescents in Taiwan. We analyzed the data using logistic regression and multivariate regression with a post-stratification weighting procedure. Among the 474 adolescent combustible cigarette users at baseline, the use of e-cigarettes had no association with smoking cessation (aRR = 0.99, 95% CI = 0.66, 1.50). Furthermore, the use of e-cigarettes was also not associated with change in combustible cigarette consumption among all adolescent combustible cigarette users at follow-up (Coef. = 0.62, 95% CI = - 36.85, 38.09). In summary, our findings suggest that e-cigarettes may not aid tobacco control among adolescent smokers. Policy makers should be cautious of the potential harms that e-cigarette may bring to young people when they are developing e-cigarette regulations.

A Charging-Aware Multi-Mode Routing Protocol for Data Collection in Wireless Rechargeable Sensor Networks.

This paper proposes a charging-aware multi-mode routing protocol (CMRP) to collect data in the wireless rechargeable sensor networks. The routing mechanism in CMRP is not steady but changes according to the energy charging status of sensors. Sensors that cannot replenish their energy efficiency use the routing protocol with less energy consumption. On the contrary, sensors that can replenish their energy use the low propagation delay routing protocol. A novel heuristic chaining mechanism based on multi-level convex hull circle (MCC) is also proposed. Simulation results show that CMRP not only has longer operation time than LEACH and PEGASIS but also has the shortest propagation delay time. The lifetime of CMRP is less than the minimum spanning tree by about 1%, but the propagation delay is shorter than MSTP about 21-28%. In addition, CMRP considers both reducing energy consumption and shortening the propagation delay at the same time. The life-delay rate of the CMRP is close to the optimal results.

An Innovative Ultrasonic Apparatus and Technology for Diagnosis of Freeze-Drying Process.

The freeze-drying process removes water from a product through freezing, sublimation and desorption procedures. However, the extreme conditions of the freeze-drying environment, such as the limited space, vacuum and freezing temperatures of as much as -50 °C, may block the ability to use certain diagnostic sensors. In this paper, an ultrasonic transducer (UT) is integrated onto the bottom of a specially designed frozen bottle for the purpose of observing the freeze-drying process of water at varying amounts. The temperatures and visual observations made with a camera are then compared with the corresponding ultrasonic signatures. Among all of the diagnostic tools and technologies available, only ultrasonic and visual records are able to analyze the entire progression of the freeze-drying process of water. Compared with typical experiment settings, the indication of drying point for water by the amplitude variations of ultrasonic L3 echo could reduce the process period and energy consumption. This study demonstrates how an innovative frozen bottle, an integrated ultrasonic sensor and diagnostic methods used to measure and optimize the freeze-drying process of water can save energy.

A Novel Positioning System Based on Coverage Area Pruning in Wireless Sensor Networks.

Wireless sensor networks are commonly applied in environmental monitoring applications. The crucial factor in such applications is to accurately retrieve the location of a monitoring event. Although many technologies have been proposed for target positioning, the devices used in such methods require better computational abilities or special hardware that is unsuitable for sensor networks with limited ability. Therefore, a range-free positioning algorithm, named coverage area pruning positioning system (CAPPS), is proposed in this study. First, the proposed CAPPS approach determines the area that includes the target approximately by using sensor nodes that can detect the target. Next, CAPPS uses sensor nodes that cannot detect the target to prune the area to improve positioning accuracy. The radio coverage variation is evaluated in a practical scenario, and a heuristic mechanism is proposed to reduce false positioning probability. Simulation results show that the size of the positioning area computed by CAPPS is smaller than that computed using distance vector hop, angle of arrival, and received signal strength indicator by approximately 98%, 97%, and 93%, respectively. In the radio variation scenario, the probability of determining an area excluding the target can be reduced from 50%⁻95% to 10%⁻30% by applying the proposed centroid point mechanism.

Multiple power-saving MSSs scheduling methods for IEEE802.16e broadband wireless networks.

This work proposes two enhanced multiple mobile subscriber stations (MSSs) power-saving scheduling methods for IEEE802.16e broadband wireless networks. The proposed methods are designed for the Unsolicited Grant Service (UGS) of IEEE802.16e. To reduce the active periods of all power-saving MSSs, the base station (BS) allocates each MSS fewest possible transmission frames to retrieve its data from the BS. The BS interlaces the active periods of each MSS to increase the amount of scheduled MSSs and splits the overflowing transmission frames to maximize the bandwidth utilization. Simulation results reveal that interlacing the active periods of MSSs can increase the number of scheduled MSSs to more than four times of that in the Direct scheduling method. The bandwidth utilization can thus be improved by 60%-70%. Splitting the overflowing transmission frames can improve bandwidth utilization by more than 10% over that achieved using the method of interlacing active periods, with a sacrifice of only 1% of the sleep periods in the interlacing active period method.

Exploring the impact of customer relational benefit on relationship commitment in health service sectors.

BACKGROUND: An increasing number of health service sectors have begun to implement relationship marketing to try to establish long-term relationship with customers. PURPOSE: Customer relational benefit has been an important subject for relationship marketing researchers. This study was conducted to investigate how customer relational benefit might influence relationship commitment in health service sectors. METHODOLOGY: The research used a questionnaire survey that retrieved a total number of 403 valid questionnaires. The data were collected by way of personal visits and investigations of outpatients in three regional hospitals in Taiwan. After the reliability and the validity of the questionnaire sample were examined, the data were verified by using hierarchical regression analysis. FINDINGS: Results showed that confidence benefit constituted the most pronounced factor for hospital customers. Confidence benefit, social benefit, and special treatment benefit were perceived by customers as the key factors that have a positive influence on relationship commitment. In particular, customers placing greater emphasis on confidence benefit tended to be less willing to establish relationship commitment. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: When health service managers develop marketing strategies using customer relational benefit, they will still need to enhance customer confidence benefit as one of the main ways of achieving future improvements. In the event where health service managers seek to install resources for establishing and maintaining a good relationship commitment with customers, the crucial factors of social and special treatment benefits should not be ignored when seeking to enhance the customers' perception of confidence benefit.