NEXTGEN: A serious game showcasing circular economy in the urban water cycle

This is the final version. Available on open access from Elsevier via the DOI in this recordData availability: Data will be made available on request.Understanding the Circular Economy for water is challenging. It requires being acquainted with the individual components involved in the urban water cycle such as stormwater, water conveyance, groundwater, water drainage, wastewater treatment and discharge. In addition, to appreciate benefits and tradeoffs in the context of Circular Economy, one also needs to factor the interrelations between water and other factors such as material recovery, energy use, expenses, and environmental impacts. On top of it, the fact that each catchment has a different geography, hydrology and urban setup can lead to difficulties in transferring gathered knowledge to other situations. In response to this challenge of developing a holistic understanding of applying Circular Economy to the urban water cycle, the NextGen Serious Game has been created. It is a simulation based online educational tool with a digital user interface that allows participants to explore the implications of applying circular economy strategies such as “Reduce” (for waste), Reuse (for materials), and Recovery (of energy though biogas generation) to the water urban cycle in different virtual catchments representing different settings. Several physical and online game-playing events took place where participants were able to take the appropriate measures to maximise Circular Economy for water when a virtual catchment was exposed to challenging scenarios, e.g., lower rainfalls and population growth. The players included students, environmental scientists, engineers, policy makers, and members of the public. The serious game was successfully used as a teaching tool in student classrooms (leading to an average improvement of about 26% in the number of correct answers). Furthermore, it made an effective debate facilitation tool contributing to the discussion of a multi-disciplinary expert panel by bringing new insights to the discussion. Finally, the Serious Game was used to organize the first e-sport competitive tournament between water professionals at an industry conference, paving the way for a novel form of engagement. This is a considerable contribution to public understanding at a time where the water industry struggles to sensitize a wider audience to the problems and reality of water in the context of climate change, growing resources scarcity, and environmental decline.European Union Horizon 202

Physical activity, cardiorespiratory fitness, and metabolic syndrome in adolescents: A cross-sectional study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In adults, there is a substantial body of evidence that physical inactivity or low cardiorespiratory fitness levels are strongly associated with the development of metabolic syndrome. Although this association has been studied extensively in adults, little is known regarding this association in adolescents. The aim of this study was to analyze the association between physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness levels with metabolic syndrome in Brazilian adolescents.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A random sample of 223 girls (mean age, 14.4 ± 1.6 years) and 233 boys (mean age, 14.6 ± 1.6 years) was selected for the study. The level of physical activity was determined by the Bouchard three-day physical activity record. Cardiorespiratory fitness was estimated by the Leger 20-meter shuttle run test. The metabolic syndrome components assessed included waist circumference, blood pressure, HDL-cholesterol, triglycerides, and fasting plasma glucose levels. Independent Student <it>t</it>-tests were used to assess gender differences. The associations between physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness with the presence of metabolic syndrome were calculated using logistic regression models adjusted for age and gender.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A high prevalence of metabolic syndrome was observed in inactive adolescents (males, 11.4%; females, 7.2%) and adolescents with low cardiorespiratory fitness levels (males, 13.9%; females, 8.6%). A significant relationship existed between metabolic syndrome and low cardiorespiratory fitness (OR, 3.0 [1.13-7.94]).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The prevalence of metabolic syndrome is high among adolescents who are inactive and those with low cardiorespiratory fitness. Prevention strategies for metabolic syndrome should concentrate on enhancing fitness levels early in life.</p

National physical education curriculum: motor and cardiovascular health related fitness in Greek adolescents.

Background: State school physical education (PE) programmes are common throughout Greece. However, it is not known if the main objectives of the Greek PE curriculum are achieved. Objective: To assess the current national PE curriculum in relation to selected motor and cardiovascular health related fitness parameters. Methods: A sample of 84 Greek schoolboys (mean (SD) age 13.6 (0.3) years, height 160.7 (8.6) cm, weight 50 (10.8) kg) volunteered. Forty-three indicated participation only in school PE classes and habitual free play (PE group). The remaining 41 were involved in extracurricular organized physical activities in addition to school PE and habitual free play (PE+ group). The subjects underwent anthropometric, motor (flexibility, balance, standing broad jump, hand grip, sit ups, and plate tapping), and cardiovascular health related (percentage body fat, aerobic fitness, and physical activity) fitness assessments. Results: Children in the PE group had inferior motor andcardiovascular health related fitness profiles compared with those in the PE+ group. Body fat (20.3 (8.8) v 13.9 (3.5); p < 0.001), aerobic fitness (34.7 (3.7) v 43.9 (4.2); p < 0.001), and time spent in intensive physical activity (0.2 (0.2) v 0.7 (0.3); p < 0.001) showed the greatest differences between the two groups. In the pupils in the PE group, these were lower than the levels proposed to be necessary to combat future health risks. Adjustments for confounding variables showed a decrease in the significance of motor fitness, but not in cardiovascular health related parameters. Conclusions: The national PE curriculum for Greek secondary schools does not achieve the required levels of motor and cardiovascular health related fitness and should be reconsidered

The prevalence of selected modifiable coronary heart disease risk factors in 12-year-old Greek boys and girls

The prevalence of 14 selected modifiable coronary heart disease (CHD) risk factors was determined in randomly selected adolescent boys (n = 117) and girls (n = 93) from provincial Greece. Based on published criteria thresholds for CHD, 45 % of boys and 50 % of girls exhibited three or more risk factors with time spent on "vigorous" activities, low cardiorespiratory fitness and fatness being among the most frequent in both sexes. Stronger associations were found between cardiorespiratory fitness and time spent of "vigorous" rather than "moderate-to-vigorous" activities in both boys and girls. Regression analysis indicated that energy expenditure (P < .01) in boys and energy expenditure (P < .05) and energy intake (P < .01) in girls could alone explain about 60 % of the body-fat related findings in either group. Broadly based primary prevention strategies aimed at children should concentrate on reducing the overall energy intake and increasing the time spent of "vigorous"activities if future Greek adult CHD mortality is to be reduced

A study of aspects related to lifestyle, fitness and health in Greek children

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Upscaling coastal flood risk assessment - Insight into the uncertainty of a continental-scale model

During the last years, flood risk assessments at continental and global scales are emerging as useful tools for risk hotspot identification, support for international policy-making and harmonization of strategies for climate change adaptation. The emergence of these models comes to cover the growing demand for integrated, large-scale risk assessments in fluvial and coastal settings, requested by actors such as international organizations and insurance companies. These stakeholders are alarmed by the increasing prospects of flood risk, driven by climatic and social variability. Despite their eminent usefulness and promising nature, these large-scale models are strongly limited by high levels of simplification in terms of process detail, hazard and inundation methodologies and outcome detail. This aspect of epistemic uncertainty (i.e. uncertainty due to lack of knowledge and modeling abstraction) in the flood risk assessment chain remains largely unaccounted for in continental and global scales. Uncertainty quantification is, therefore, needed at the large scale, as a means to communicate risk more effectively and increase model validity. In light of this, this study aims at providing insight on the underlying epistemic uncertainty of a continental-scale coastal flood risk model. Having LISCOAST, an integrated, coastal flood risk assessment framework for Europe currently in development at JRC, as a basis and following the definition of flood risk as a product of hazard, exposure and vulnerability, this thesis develops an analysis framework that examines multiple sources of epistemic uncertainty in the risk assessment chain. The developed algorithms examine four main sources of epistemic uncertainty, namely the inundation algorithms, the interaction of different hazard components, the way flood defenses are modeled and the assumptions behind the use of depth-damage functions. The impact of these sources to the modeled Expected Annual Damage (EAD), for present and future scenarios, is evaluated in a case study that expands upon two scales: a regional application in Faro, Algarve, Portugal and an international application in the Iberian Peninsula, covering the coastline of Portugal and Spain. The developed analysis framework is broad and readily able to be generalized in the native model scale, i.e. in the European coasts. The quantitative results of such an analysis serve a twofold purpose: not only can they lead to major improvements in future versions of LISCOAST, but they can also give general recommendations for improving the design approach of large-scale coastal flood risk models and communicate their potential and limitations more effectively. At the same time, they act as a point of departure to spark discussion in the risk modeling community on the large uncertainties that underpin large-scale flood risk assessments.Hydraulic EngineeringCivil Engineering and Geoscience

Greek adolescents, fitness, fatness, fat intake, activity, and coronary heart disease risk.

A dramatic increase in adult mortality rates from coronary heart disease (CHD) in Greece, accompanied by increased prevalence of CHD risk factors in children, has been documented. However, there is controversy about the independent effects of certain lifestyle parameters on primary CHD risk factors. This article examine the association between CHD risk factors (HDL-C, LDL-C, HDL-C/TC, triglycerides, systolic and diastolic blood pressure) and lifestyle parameters (fitness, fatness, fat intake, and physical activity) in 210 12-year old Greek pupils. Correcting for the fixed factors of gender and maturation, analyses of covariance (ANCOVA) with backward elimination of the lifestyle covariates revealed significant associations between three CHD risk factors (HDL-C, HDL-C/TC, systolic blood pressure) and physical activity levels. In contrast, the covariates aerobic fitness, fatness and fat intake failed to reach significance with any of the CHD risk factors. In Greek schoolchildren, primary CHD risk factors are mainly associated with physical activity levels, independently of fitness, fatness, and/or fat intake. Prevention strategies should concentrate on enhancing physical activity early in life, if the increased prevalence of Greek adult CHD mortality is to be diminished

National physical education curriculum: motor and cardiovascular health related fitness in Greek adolescents

Background: State school physical education (PE) programmes are common throughout Greece. However, it is not known if the main objectives of the Greek PE curriculum are achieved. Objective: To assess the current national PE curriculum in relation to selected motor and cardiovascular health related fitness parameters. Methods: A sample of 84 Greek schoolboys (mean (SD) age 13.6 (0.3) years, height 160.7 (8.6) cm, weight 50 (10.8) kg) volunteered. Forty three indicated participation only in school PE classes and habitual free play (PE group). The remaining 41 were involved in extracurricular organised physical activities in addition to school PE and habitual free play (PE+ group). The subjects underwent anthropometric, motor (flexibility, balance, standing broad jump, hand grip, sit ups, and plate tapping), and cardiovascular health related (percentage body fat, aerobic fitness, and physical activity) fitness assessments. Results: Children in the PE group had inferior motor and cardiovascular health related fitness profiles compared with those in the PE+ group. Body fat (20.3 (8.8) v 13.9 (3.5); p<0.001), aerobic fitness (34.7 (3.7) v 43.9 (4.2); p<0.001), and time spent in intensive physical activity (0.2 (0.2) v 0.7 (0.3); p<0.001) showed the greatest differences between the two groups. In the pupils in the PE group, these were lower than the levels proposed to be necessary to combat future health risks. Adjustments for confounding variables showed a decrease in the significance of motor fitness, but not in cardiovascular health related parameters. Conclusions: The national PE curriculum for Greek secondary schools does not achieve the required levels of motor and cardiovascular health related fitness and should be reconsidered

Longitudinal modeling of adiposity in periadolescent Greek schoolchildren.

PURPOSE: Obesity has an etiology that is multidimensional in nature. Given the dearth of longitudinal data, we examined changes in adipose tissue (Ad) in relation to physical activity levels (PA), aerobic fitness (AF), and energy intake (EI) in Greek schoolchildren, as they progressed from age 12 to 14 yr. METHODS: This was a 2-yr and three-time-point (TP) study. Participants (N=210 (TP1); =204 (TP2); =198 (TP3)) were assessed for anthropometry, maturity status, Ad, PA, AF, and EI. Mean values were used for exploratory analyses, whereas two generalized estimating equations (GEE) models examined for longitudinal associations between the studied parameters. The first (GEE1) aimed to extract inherent associations between the dependent (Ad) and independent (PA, AF, EI) variables for the entire study period. For further evidence of association, the second analysis (GEE2) used the independent variables at TP1 and TP2 to predict the dependent variables at TP3. RESULTS: Levels of Ad in boys decreased significantly (P0.05) in girls. GEE1 revealed that longitudinal changes in Ad were significantly associated only with PA (beta=-0.16; P<0.001) and AF (beta=-0.09; P<0.05) for all schoolchildren. Similarly, GEE2 revealed that the main factors (at TP1 and TP2) predicting the development of Ad (at TP3) were PA (beta=-0.14; P<0.001) followed by AF (beta=-0.10; P<0.05). CONCLUSION: With respect to data presented, we established that longitudinal changes in Ad are mainly accompanied by changes in PA and, to a lesser extent, AF levels