The Chinese University of Hong Kong

About: The Chinese University of Hong Kong is a education organization based out in Hong Kong, China. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Computer science. The organization has 43411 authors who have published 93672 publications receiving 3066651 citations.

Body fat distribution and noncommunicable diseases in populations: overview of the 2008 WHO Expert Consultation on Waist Circumference and Waist-Hip Ratio.

Abstract: A World Health Organization (WHO) Expert Consultation on Waist Circumference (WC) and Waist-Hip Ratio (WHR) was convened in Geneva from 8 to 11 December 2008 to consider approaches to developing international guidelines for indices and action levels in order to characterize health risks associated with these measures of body fat distribution-alternative or complementary to the existing WHO guidelines for assessments of generalized obesity on the basis of body mass index. Six background papers prepared for the Consultation are compiled in this issue. These six papers examine a range of health outcomes and issues, including whether there is a basis for choosing WC over WHR and whether different action levels by gender, age, ethnicity, country or region are warranted. Although guidelines involving WC and WHR are potentially useful and clearly required, the challenges in identifying cutoffs for international guidelines should not be underestimated or oversimplified. The final report and outcomes of the Expert Consultation will be published by WHO.

Global well-posedness of classical solutions with large oscillations and vacuum to the three-dimensional isentropic compressible Navier-Stokes equations

Abstract: We establish the global existence and uniqueness of classical solutions to the Cauchy problem for the isentropic compressible Navier-Stokes equations in three spatial dimensions with smooth initial data that are of small energy but possibly large oscillations with constant state as far field, which could be either vacuum or nonvacuum. The initial density is allowed to vanish, and the spatial measure of the set of vacuum can be arbitrarily large; in particular, the initial density can even have compact support. These results generalize previous results on classical solutions for initial densities being strictly away from vacuum and are the first for global classical solutions that may have large oscillations and can contain vacuum states. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Particle size analysis in pharmaceutics: principles, methods and applications.

Abstract: Physicochemical and biopharmaceutical properties of drug substances and dosage forms can be highly affected by the particle size, a critical process parameter in pharmaceutical production. The fundamental issue with particle size analysis is the variety of equivalent particle diameters generated by different methods, which is largely ascribable to the particle shape and particle dispersion mechanism involved. Thus, to enable selection of the most appropriate or optimal sizing technique, cross-correlation between different techniques may be required. This review offers an in-depth discussion on particle size analysis pertaining to specific pharmaceutical applications and regulatory aspects, fundamental principles and terminology, instrumentation types, data presentation and interpretation, in-line and process analytical technology. For illustration purposes, special consideration is given to the analysis of aerosols using time-of-flight and cascade impactor measurements, which is supported by a computational analysis conducted for this review.

Morphological Awareness Uniquely Predicts Young Children's Chinese Character Recognition

Abstract: Two unique measures of morphological awareness, along with other reading-related tasks, were orally administered to 100 kindergarten and 100 2nd-grade Hong Kong Chinese children. These morphological awareness tasks were developed on the basis of 2 special properties of Chinese: (a) the relatively large number of homophones requires speakers to distinguish unique meanings in syllables with identical sounds, and (b) complex vocabulary words are often built from 2 or more previously learned morphemes. Both tasks of morphological awareness predicted unique variance in Chinese character recognition in these children, after controlling for age, phonological awareness, speeded naming, speed of processing, and vocabulary. Developmentally, both tasks of morphological awareness improved with age. Results demonstrate that morphological awareness is uniquely important for early Chinese character recognition.

Detecting postnatal depression in Chinese women. Validation of the Chinese version of the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale.

Abstract: BACKGROUND We evaluated the utility of the Chinese version of the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) and measured the prevalence of major depression six weeks after confinement among Chinese women in Hong Kong. METHOD A prospective cohort of 145 women completed the EPDS, the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) six weeks after giving birth. They were then assessed with the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R, non-patient version (SCID-NP) to establish psychiatric diagnosis. The criterion validity of EPDS was tested against this clinical diagnosis, and the concurrent validity against the GHQ and BDI scores was also evaluated. The internal consistency of the scales was measured by Cronbach's alpha coefficient. RESULTS The Chinese EPDS had satisfactory psychometric properties and a cut-off score of 9/10 is recommended for screening depressive illness in a general postnatal population. At six weeks postpartum, 5.5% of the study population suffered from major depression. CONCLUSIONS The Chinese EPDS will be useful for screening for postnatal depression.