Breast cancer incidence in Sweden has always been approximately twice as high as in Singapore. In recent years, this difference is limited to postmenopausal women. The aim of this study was to explore the reasons behind these differences through the use of age-period-cohort modeling. This population-based study included all breast cancer cases reported to the Swedish and the Singapore cancer registries from 1968 to 1997, with a total of 135,581 Swedish and 10,716 Singaporean women. Poisson regression using ageperiod and age-cohort models was used to determine the effects of age at diagnosis, calendar period and birth cohort. Incidence rate ratios were used to summarize these effects. An age-cohort model provided the best fit to the data in both countries, indicating that changes over lifetime, rather than recent differences in medical surveillance, might account for the observed differences in these 2 populations. The changes over birth cohort were much greater among Singaporean women. The relative effect of age was very similar in the 2 countries. Analyses show that age and cohort effects may explain the differences in trends of female breast cancer incidence between Sweden and Singapore. The larger cohort effect seen in Singaporean women may be attributed to more rapid changes in reproduction and lifestyle patterns than that of Swedish women during the period studied. The incidence of breast cancer in postmenopausal women in Singapore will probably continue to rise in the coming decades to match the current Swedish rates.

PurposeMyopia is rising in prevalence in many locations, and there is evidence that outdoor light exposure is a major environmental factor playing a role in myopia development. This study examined the patterns of daily light exposure in similarly aged children from two geographic locations (Australia and Singapore) known to exhibit differences in myopia prevalence.MethodsWearable light sensors were used to assess daily light exposure in 69 Singaporean children aged 8 to 12 years (mean, 9.2 ± 1.1) and 43 Australian children aged 10 to 12 years (mean, 11.3 ± 0.6). The mean daily time exposed to bright outdoor light (>1000 lux) and the number and duration of daily episodes of outdoor exposure were examined.ResultsPatterns of daily outdoor light exposure differed substantially between Australia and Singapore. Australian children (105 ± 42 min/d) experienced significantly longer daily outdoor light exposure than Singaporean children (61 ± 40 min/d; P = 0.005), with the largest differences found on weekdays during school hours. Australian children (6.9 ± 1.5 episodes per day) had more frequent daily episodes of outdoor light exposure compared with Singaporean children (4.6 ± 1.5; P = 0.02); however, there was no significant difference in the mean duration of these episodes between countries (P = 0.54).ConclusionsChildren living in Singapore were exposed to significantly less daily outdoor light than Australian children, and these differences may be one of several factors contributing to the differences in myopia prevalence typically found between these populations.Translational RelevanceKnowledge of these light exposure patterns may assist in the design of outdoor interventions, including school programs, to increase outdoor time in urban Asian populations.

The paper reports the design, fabrication and experimental results of a liquid crystal polymer (LCP) membrane-based pressure sensor for flow rate and flow direction sensing applications. Elaborate experimental testing results demonstrating the sensors' performance as an airflow sensor have been illustrated and validated with theory. MEMS sensors using LCP as a membrane structural material show higher sensitivity and reliability over silicon counterparts. The developed device is highly robust for harsh environment applications such as atmospheric wind flow monitoring and underwater flow sensing. A simple, low-cost and repeatable fabrication scheme has been developed employing low temperatures. The main features of the sensor developed in this work are a LCP membrane with integrated thin film gold piezoresistors deposited on it. The sensor developed demonstrates a good sensitivity of 3.695 mV (ms−1)−1, large operating range (0.1 to >10 ms−1) and good accuracy in measuring airflow with an average error of only 3.6% full-scale in comparison with theory. Various feasible applications of the developed sensor have been demonstrated with experimental results. The sensor was tested for two other applications—in clinical diagnosis for breath rate, breath velocity monitoring, and in underwater applications for object detection by sensing near-field spatial flow pressure.

Formation of nanocrystals with preferred orientation within the amorphous carbon matrix has attracted lots of theoretical and experimental attentions recently. Interesting properties of this films, easy fabrication methods and practical problems associated with the growth of other carbon nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene gives this new class of carbon nanostructure a potential to be considered as a replacement for some applications such as thermal management at nanoscale and interconnects. In this short review paper, the fabrication techniques and associated formation mechanisms of these nanostructured films have been discussed. Besides, electrical and thermal properties of these nanostructured films have been compared with CNTs and graphene.