Environments and the experience of flow: A scoping review

Investigations into the impact of natural and built environments on mental health often place greater emphasis on hedonic experience over other meaningful aspects of human wellbeing such as flow. Psychological flow occurs during episodes of deep immersion in intrinsically motivated activities. Giving rise to feelings of fulfilment and self-transcendence, it can contribute to both hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing. Although individual differences and social contexts can enable or inhibit flow, it is not entirely clear how natural and built environments are associated with flow experiences. The objective of this review is to map existing primary research concerning how environments (natural and built) relate to flow experiences. A total of 60 included sources, published between 1975 and the end of 2022, illustrate that flow is not only impacted by the environment, but also connected to place-based meaning. Four themes reflect the type of source findings, highlighting the importance of 1. contact with nature, 2. person-environment fit, 3. aesthetics and 4. relationship to place. Review findings explore areas for future research and potential implications for nature-based interventions

Examining the health literacy and health behaviours of children aged 8–11 in Wales, UK

Childhood is a period of significant formative development where knowledge, skills, and capacities for adequate health literacy are acquired, particularly within school settings. The new Curriculum for Wales (CfW), phasing in from September 2022 for learners aged 3–16 years, places statutory focus on health and well-being and school-level curriculum design, providing unprecedented opportunities to empower children as agents in making health-enhancing decisions. Designing, tracking, and evaluating impacts of the CfW on children’s health literacy requires scalable monitoring tools; however, research efforts have focused on adolescent populations. This national-scale scoping and pilot study, the first to explore children’s health literacy in Wales, piloted the Health Literacy for School-Aged Children (HLSAC-5) within the existing nationwide Health and Attainment of Pupils in Primary EducatioN (HAPPEN-Wales) health and well-being survey to examine the health literacy of children aged 8–11 (n = 2607) and explore associations between health literacy and health behaviours. Children’s health literacy was categorized as low (22.6%), moderate (50.4%), and high (27.0%). Multinomial logistic regression analyses suggest high health literacy compared to low health literacy was associated with higher sleep [relative risk ratio (RRR): 1.08, 95% CI 1.01–1.15], higher weekly physical activity (RRR: 1.13, 95% CI 1.03–1.25), fewer sedentary days per week (RRR: 0.89, 95% CI 0.81–0.99), and higher health-related well-being (RRR: 1.35, 95% CI 1.27–1.44). This study offers a sustainable measure of pre-adolescent children’s health literacy and health behaviours and tracking of CfW impacts. This enables efforts to be tailored to person-centred (understanding children’s health literacy needs), place-based (examining specific organizational health literacy context within schools and CfW design), and policy-focused approaches (re-energizing health literacy within current/emerging policies in Wales including the CfW)

The Effect of Endurance Exercise and its Intensity in Middle- aged Runners; Are they Thrombogenic?

Introduction Despite the well documented benefits of regular exercise, acute exercise induces a transient hypercoagulable state with increasing risk of thrombotic disease with age and intensity. While prior studies have used various conventional coagulation tests in studying the influence of exercise on coagulation, limited attention has been given to clot microstructure and contraction profile in well-trained individuals of middle to older age. Our aim was to identify effects of exercise on these variables using hemorheological biomarkers. Materials and methods Twenty-eight male and female runners aged over 40 years completed a 10 km run at moderate intensity. Of these runners,14 were reinvited to complete a 3 km run to exhaustion. Blood samples were drawn at three time-points, baseline, immediately after exercise and after 1 hour of recovery. Structural biomarker df and measurements of mature clot mechanical properties (Maximum Contractile Force and G’Max) were analysed alongside conventional coagulation markers. Results While df remained stable following long moderate intensity exercise, higher intensity exercise caused an increase in df indicating a hypercoagulable phase. Following an hour of rest, df returned to baseline. These results indicate that the effect of acute exercise on hypercoagulability is intensity dependent and transient. Maximum Contractile Force (CFMax) was reduced by exercise, irrespective of intensity. This effect was lower after an hour of rest, suggesting that some unknown initial compensatory mechanisms are outlasted by a longer period of reduced contractile force. Conclusion df and CFMax detected the hypercoagulable phase that occurred in trained older individuals as a result of exercise. Investigating these effects in more sentient populations could allow risk stratification of exercise rehabilitation programmes and their intensity

Electrolyte tailoring and interfacial engineering for safe and high-temperature lithium-ion batteries

The deployment of lithium-ion batteries, essential for military and space exploration applications, faces restrictions due to safety issues and performance degradation stemming from the uncontrollable side reactions between electrolytes and electrodes, particularly at high temperatures. Current research focuses on interfacial modification and non-flammable electrolyte development, which fails to simultaneously improve both safety and cyclic performance. This work introduces a synergistic approach by incorporating weakly polar methyl 2,2-difluoro-2-(fluorosulfonyl)acetate (MDFSA) and non-flammable 2-(2,2,2-trifluoroethoxy)-1,3,2-dioxaphospholane 2-oxide (TFP) to achieve a localized high-concentration electrolyte (LHCE) that can stabilize both anode and cathode interfaces and thus improve the cycling life and safety of batteries, particularly at evaluated temperatures. As a result, the NCM811|Gr pouch cell with MDFSA-containing LHCE exhibits a high capacity retention rate of 79.6% at 60 °C after 1200 cycles due to the formation of thermally and structurally stable interfaces on the electrodes, outperforming pouch cells utilizing commercial carbonate-based (capacity retention: 23.7% after 125 cycles). Additionally, pouch cells in the charging state also exhibit commendable safety performance, indicating potential for practical applications

A case for the use of deep learning algorithms for individual and population level assessments of mental health disorders: Predicting depression among China's elderly

Background: With the continuous advancement of age in China, attention should be paid to the mental well-being of the elderly population. The present study uses a novel machine learning (ML) method on a large representative elderly database in China as a sample to predict the risk factors of depression in the elderly population from both holistic and individual level. Methods: A total of participants met the inclusion criteria from the fourth waves of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) were analyzed with ML algorithms. The level of depression was assessed by the 10-item Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CESD-10). Results: The current study found top 5 factors that were important for predicting depression in the elderly population in China, including average sleep time, gender, age, social activities and nap time during the day. The results also provide reliable diagnostic likelihood at the individual level to support clinicians identify the most impactful factors contributing to patient depression. Our findings also suggested that activities such as interacting with friends and play ma-Jong, chess or join community clubs may have a positive collaborative effect for elderly's mental health. Conclusions: Holistic approaches are an effective method of deriving and interpreting sophisticated models of mental health in elderly populations. More detailed information about a patient's demographics, medical history, sleeping patterns and social/leisure activities can help to inform policy and treatment interventions on a population and individual level. Large scale surveys such as CHARLS are effective methods for testing the most accurate models, however, further research using professional clinical input could further advance the field

Understanding and predicting animal movements and distributions in the Anthropocene

Predicting animal movements and spatial distributions is crucial for our comprehension of ecological processes and provides key evidence for conserving and managing populations, species and ecosystems. Notwithstanding considerable progress in movement ecology in recent decades, developing robust predictions for rapidly changing environments remains challenging. To accurately predict the effects of anthropogenic change, it is important to first identify the defining features of human‐modified environments and their consequences on the drivers of animal movement. We review and discuss these features within the movement ecology framework, describing relationships between external environment, internal state, navigation and motion capacity. Developing robust predictions under novel situations requires models moving beyond purely correlative approaches to a dynamical systems perspective. This requires increased mechanistic modelling, using functional parameters derived from first principles of animal movement and decision‐making. Theory and empirical observations should be better integrated by using experimental approaches. Models should be fitted to new and historic data gathered across a wide range of contrasting environmental conditions. We need therefore a targeted and supervised approach to data collection, increasing the range of studied taxa and carefully considering issues of scale and bias, and mechanistic modelling. Thus, we caution against the indiscriminate non‐supervised use of citizen science data, AI and machine learning models. We highlight the challenges and opportunities of incorporating movement predictions into management actions and policy. Rewilding and translocation schemes offer exciting opportunities to collect data from novel environments, enabling tests of model predictions across varied contexts and scales. Adaptive management frameworks in particular, based on a stepwise iterative process, including predictions and refinements, provide exciting opportunities of mutual benefit to movement ecology and conservation. In conclusion, movement ecology is on the verge of transforming from a descriptive to a predictive science. This is a timely progression, given that robust predictions under rapidly changing environmental conditions are now more urgently needed than ever for evidence‐based management and policy decisions. Our key aim now is not to describe the existing data as well as possible, but rather to understand the underlying mechanisms and develop models with reliable predictive ability in novel situations

Pain perception in personality disorders

Research has focused on pain perception of individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder, but there is a lack of research regarding pain perception for other types of Personality Disorders. The present study explored associations between the perception of experimentally-induced acute pain of individuals without acute or chronic pain with Borderline, as well as Histrionic, and Schizotypal, Personality Disorders traits. The primary question of interest was whether any personality disorders were associated with altered pain perception. Fifty-two participants had pain induced by a cold-pressor task, and were evaluated for personality disorder traits. Psychophysiological perception of pain was measured using pain threshold and tolerance tests, subjective reports of pain were taken using the McGill Pain Questionnaire, and physiological aspects were measured using Galvanic Skin Response as an index of physiological arousal. The results showed significant associations between Histrionic Personality Disorder and subjective reports of the sensory aspects, and intensity, of pain, but not with psychophysiological or physiological responses (although caution is needed in interpreting the results of multiple tests). There were no significant associations regarding pain perception and Borderline, or Schizotypal, Personality Disorders. These results are preliminary, but provide novel suggestions regarding the impact of Personality Disorder on pain perception and guidance for future research has been provided