Many parents have difficulty managing childhood asthma. In Hong Kong (HK), while medication is the primary form of treatment, traditional Chinese medicine is another favored option. In addition, HK follows a dual-track healthcare system, which may pose unique experiences for Chinese parents in childhood asthma management. This qualitative descriptive study aimed to explore the experiences of HK Chinese parents in caring for their children with asthma. Methods: Fourteen HK Chinese mothers of children (aged 3-10) suffering from asthma were purposively sampled to participate in individual, semi-structured interviews. A realist approach following conventional content analysis was used to interpret the interviews. Results: The mothers expressed feelings of uncertainty, fear of asthma crises, and searching for ways to cope. These feelings triggered various strategies to control their child’s asthma. As long as the child’s asthma symptoms recurred, the mothers’ distress continued. Their distress was sometimes exacerbated by self-doubt and worries about whether they would receive adequate support from their family and healthcare professionals. Conclusion: Helping parents to understand their limits may help them be more open to varied aspects of their caregiving experiences, and thus to cope better. Psychological interventions together traditional educational training may help to alleviate parents’ psychological difficulties.

Abnormal connections in brain networks of healthy people always bring the problems of cognitive impairments and degeneration of specific brain circuits, which may finally result in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Exploring the development of the brain from normal controls (NC) to AD is an essential part of human research. Although connections changes have been found in the development, the connection mechanism that drives these changes remain incompletely understood. The purpose of this study is to explore the connection changes in brain networks in the process from NC to AD, and uncover the underlying connection mechanism that shapes the topologies of AD brain networks. In particular, we propose a model named MINM from the perspective of topology-based mutual information to achieve our aim. MINM concerns the question of estimating the connection probability between two cortical regions with the consideration of both the mutual information of their observed network topologies and their Euclidean distance in anatomical space. In addition, MINM considers establishing and deleting connections, simultaneously, during the networks modeling from the stage of NC to AD. Experiment results show that MINM is sufficient to capture an impressive range of topological properties of real brain networks such as characteristic path length, network efficiency, and transitivity, and it also provides an excellent fit to the real brain networks in degree distribution compared to experiential models. Thus, we anticipate that MINM may explain the connection mechanism for the formation of the brain network organization in AD patients.

The performance of recycled aggregate concrete deteriorates due to the defects of adhesive mortar, pores and cracks on the surface of recycled aggregate. It is of great engineering significance to modify the reclaimed aggregate to improve its performance and adaptability. In this paper, the physical and chemical properties of waste concrete recycled aggregate are reviewed. Then, the existing modification methods and technologies of recycled aggregate, including physical, chemical and biological methods, are reviewed. Finally, the existing problems of the current modification technology are summarized, and the future research direction is proposed. It is expected to provide a new idea and method for the modification of waste concrete recycled aggregate.