1,260 research outputs found
Validation of Three Body Composition Techniques with a Comparison of Ultrasound Abdominal Fat Depths against an Octopolar Bioelectrical Impedance Device
International Journal of Exercise Science 5(3) : 205-213, 2012. The aims of this study were to cross-validate three clinical-grade measures of body composition, using an octopolar Bioelectrical Impedance (BIA), an ultrasound analyzer (US) and Air-Displacement Plethysmography (ADP) and second to compare the US scans of total abdominal, subcutaneous and visceral fat depths (mm) against the trunk percent fat (%BF) from the octopolar BIA. Twenty-six college-aged (22.9 Ā± 1.35 years) men (n = 18) and women (n = 8) volunteered to participate in this study. Body composition was assessed using BIA (total and by segments), ADP and US. In addition, total abdominal, subcutaneous and visceral fat layers were measured using the US. All measurements were done in accordance with manufacturersā guidelines. The %BF comparing the three clinical grade machines were all significantly correlated and no significant differences were found using a 1-way ANOVA. All three fat depths were significantly correlated to the trunk fat % via BIA, while significant differences were found for the 1-way ANOVA. A Tukey post-hoc test showed significant differences between the BIA trunk %BF and both subcutaneous and visceral US fat depths. Having valid ways to measure body composition and visceral fat that is accessible in terms of being transportable, cost effective, and simple to use, should become a part of preventive medicine
Determinants of three-year change in childrenās objectively measured sedentary time
Background
Sedentary behaviours (SB) are highly prevalent in young people and may be adversely associated with physical and mental health. Understanding of the modifiable determinants of SB is necessary to inform the design of behaviour change interventions but much of the existing research is cross-sectional and focussed upon screen-based behaviours.
Purpose
To examine the social, psychological and environmental determinants of change in childrenās objectively measured sedentary time from age 11 to 14 years.
Methods
Data are from the second (2008) and third (2011) waves of assessment in the Sport, Physical Activity, and Eating Behaviour: Environmental Determinants in Young People (SPEEDY) study, conducted in the county of Norfolk, United Kingdom. Longitudinal data on accelerometer assessed sedentary time were available for 316 (53.5% female, 11.2Ā±0.3 years at baseline) and 264 children after-school and at the weekend respectively. Information on 14 candidate determinants, including school travel mode and electronic media ownership, was self-reported. Change in the proportion of registered time spent sedentary was used as the outcome variable in cross-classified linear regression models, adjusted for age, sex, body mass index and baseline sedentary time. Simple and multiple models were run and interactions with sex explored.
Results
Daily sedentary time increased by 30-40 minutes after-school and at the weekend from baseline to follow-up. Participants who travelled to school by cycle exhibited smaller increases in after-school sedentary time (beta; 95%CI for change in % time spent sedentary: -3.3;-6.7,-0.07). No significant determinants of change in weekend sedentary time were identified.
Conclusions
Time spent sedentary increased during the three-year duration of follow-up but few of the variables examined were significantly associated with changes in sedentary time. Childrenās mode of school travel may influence changes in their sedentary time over this period and should be examined further, alongside broader efforts to identify modifiable determinants of SB during childhood.The work was supported by the Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR), a UK Clinical Research Collaboration Public Health Research Centre of Excellence (RES-590-28-0002). Funding from the British Heart Foundation, Economic and Social Research Council, Medical Research Council, the National Institute for Health Research, and the Wellcome Trust, under the auspices of the UK Clinical Research Collaboration, is gratefully acknowledged. The SPEEDY study was funded by the Medical Research Council (Unit Programme number MC_UU_12015/7, MC_UU_12015/3, MC_UU_12015/4) and the National Prevention Research Initiative, consisting of the following funding partners: British Heart Foundation; Cancer Research United Kingdom; Department of Health; Diabetes United Kingdom; Economic and Social Research Council; Medical Research Council; Health and Social Care Research and Development Office for Northern Ireland; Chief Scientist Office, Scottish Government Health Directorates; Welsh Assembly Government; and World Cancer Research Fund
Critical minerals and energy-impacts and limitations of moving to unconventional resources
Ā© 2016 by the authors. The nexus of minerals and energy becomes ever more important as the economic growth and development of countries in the global South accelerates and the needs of new energy technologies expand, while at the same time various important minerals are declining in grade and available reserves from conventional mining. Unconventional resources in the form of deep ocean deposits and urban ores are being widely examined, although exploitation is still limited. This paper examines some of the implications of the transition towards cleaner energy futures in parallel with the shifts through conventional ore decline and the uptake of unconventional mineral resources. Three energy scenarios, each with three levels of uptake of renewable energy, are assessed for the potential of critical minerals to restrict growth under 12 alternative mineral supply patterns. Under steady material intensities per unit of capacity, the study indicates that selenium, indium and tellurium could be barriers in the expansion of thin-film photovoltaics, while neodymium and dysprosium may delay the propagation of wind power. For fuel cells, no restrictions are observed
AB Aurigae Resolved: Evidence for Spiral Structure
We obtained high angular resolution (~2") images of the 13CO(J=1-0) line and
2.7 millimeter continuum emission, and slightly lower resolution images of
12CO(J=1-0) and C18O(J=1-0) line emission toward the Herbig Ae star AB Aurigae.
We resolve a circumstellar disk of diameter 780 AU (FWHM) with a velocity
pattern consistent with a purely rotational disk at inclination 21.5 degrees
and position angle 58.6 degrees. Using Keplerian disk models, we find a central
source dynamical mass of 2.8+-0.1 Msun and a cutoff radius of 615 AU for the
13CO emission. Inclination, mass, and radius determined from 12CO and C18O
observations agree with those values, given optical depth and abundance
effects. As a result of the high angular resolution of our observations, we
confirm the existence of spiral structure suggested by near-IR scattered light
images and show that the spiral arms represent density contrasts in the disk.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, accepted ApJ Letter
uvbyCa H beta CCD Photometry of Clusters. VII. The Intermediate-Age Anticenter Cluster Melotte 71
CCD photometry on the intermediate-band uvbyCa H beta system is presented for
the anticenter, intermediate-age open cluster, Melotte 71. Restricting the data
to probable single members of the cluster using the color-magnitude diagram and
the photometric indices alone generates a sample of 48 F dwarfs on the
unevolved main sequence. The average E(b-y) = 0.148 +/- 0.003 (s.e.m.) or
E(B-V) = 0.202 +/- 0.004 (s.e.m.), where the errors refer to internal errors
alone. With this reddening, [Fe/H] is derived from both m1 and hk, using H beta
and b-y as the temperature index, with excellent agreement among the four
approaches and a final weighted average of [Fe/H] = -0.17 +/- 0.02 (s.e.m.) for
the cluster, on a scale where the Hyades has [Fe/H] = +0.12. When adjusted for
the higher reddening estimate, the previous metallicity estimates from
Washington photometry and from spectroscopy are now in agreement with the
intermediate-band result. From comparisons to isochrones of appropriate
metallicity, the cluster age and distance are determined as 0.9 +/- 0.1 Gyr and
(m-M) = 12.2 +/- 0.1 or (m-M)_0 = 11.6 +/- 0.1. At this distance from the sun,
Mel 71 has a galactocentric distance of 10.0 kpc on a scale where the sun is
8.5 kpc from the galactic center. Based upon its age, distance, and elemental
abundances, Mel 71 appears to be a less populous analog to NGC 3960.Comment: Accepted for Astronomical Journal. 38 page latex file includes 11
figures and short version of data table. Full table will appear in online AJ
or may be requested from author
Laser-induced ultrafast electron emission from a field emission tip
We show that a field emission tip electron source that is triggered with a femtosecond laser pulse can generate electron pulses shorter than the laser pulse duration (100&#; fs). The emission process is sensitive to a power law of the laser intensity, which supports an emission mechanism based on multiphoton absorption followed by over-the-barrier emission. Observed continuous transitions between power laws of different orders are indicative of field emission processes. We show that the source can also be operated so that thermionic emission processes become significant. Understanding these different emission processes is relevant for the production of sub-cycle electron pulses
Multi-Transition Study of M51's Molecular Gas Spiral Arms
Two selected regions in the molecular gas spiral arms in M51 were mapped with
the Owens Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO) mm-interferometer in the 12CO(2-1),
13CO(1-0), C18O(1-0), HCN(1-0) and HCO+(1-0) emission lines. The CO data have
been combined with the 12CO(1-0) data from Aalto et al. (1999) covering the
central 3.5kpc to study the physical properties of the molecular gas. All CO
data cubes were short spacing corrected using IRAM 30m (12CO(1-0): NRO 45m)
single dish data. A large velocity gradient (LVG) analysis finds that the giant
molecular clouds (GMCs) are similar to Galactic GMCs when studied at 180pc
(120pc) resolution with an average kinetic temperature of T_kin = 20(16)K and
H_2 density of n(H_2) = 120(240)cm^(-3) when assuming virialized clouds (a
constant velocity gradient dv/dr. The associated conversion factor between H_2
mass and CO luminosity is close to the Galactic value for most regions
analyzed. Our findings suggest that the GMC population in the spiral arms of
M51 is similar to those of the Milky Way and therefore the strong star
formation occurring in the spiral arms has no strong impact on the molecular
gas in the spiral arms. Extinction inferred from the derived H_2 column density
is very high (A_V about 15 - 30 mag), about a factor of 5-10 higher than the
average value derived toward HII regions. Thus a significant fraction of the
ongoing star formation could be hidden inside the dust lanes of the spiral
arms. A comparison of MIPS 24um and H_alpha data, however, suggests that this
is not the case and most of the GMCs studied here are not (yet) forming stars.
We also present low (4.5") resolution OVRO maps of the HCN(1-0) and HCO+(1-0)
emission at the location of the brightest 12CO(1-0) peak.Comment: 41 pages, 12 figures, 7 tables; accepted for publication by Ap
Cardiovascular Damage in Alzheimer Disease: Autopsy Findings From the Bryan ADRC
Autopsy information on cardiovascular damage was investigated for pathologically confirmed Alzheimer disease (AD) patients (n = 84) and non-AD control patients (n = 60). The 51 relevant items were entered into a grade-of-membership model to describe vascular damage in AD. Five latent groups were identified āI: early-onset AD,ā āII: controls, cancer,ā āIII: controls, extensive atherosclerosis,ā āIV: late-onset AD, male,ā and āV: late-onset AD, female.ā Expectedly, Groups IV and V had elevated APOE Ļµ4 frequency. Unexpectedly, there was limited atherosclerosis and frequent myocardial valve and ventricular damage. The findings do not indicate a strong relationship between atherosclerosis and AD, although both are associated with the APOE Ļµ4. Instead, autopsy findings of extensive atherosclerosis were associated with possible, not probable or definite AD, and premature death. They are consistent with the hypothesis that brain hypoperfusion contributes to dementia, possibly to AD pathogenesis, and raise the possibility that the APOE allele Ļµ4 contributes directly to heart valve and myocardial damage
Dynamically Driven Evolution of the Interstellar Medium in M51
We report the highest-fidelity observations of the spiral galaxy M51 in CO
emission, revealing the evolution of giant molecular clouds (GMCs) vis-a-vis
the large-scale galactic structure and dynamics. The most massive GMCs
(so-called GMAs) are first assembled and then broken up as the gas flow through
the spiral arms. The GMAs and their H2 molecules are not fully dissociated into
atomic gas as predicted in stellar feedback scenarios, but are fragmented into
smaller GMCs upon leaving the spiral arms. The remnants of GMAs are detected as
the chains of GMCs that emerge from the spiral arms into interarm regions. The
kinematic shear within the spiral arms is sufficient to unbind the GMAs against
self-gravity. We conclude that the evolution of GMCs is driven by large-scale
galactic dynamics --their coagulation into GMAs is due to spiral arm streaming
motions upon entering the arms, followed by fragmentation due to shear as they
leave the arms on the downstream side. In M51, the majority of the gas remains
molecular from arm entry through the inter-arm region and into the next spiral
arm passage.Comment: 6 pages, including 3 figures. Accepted, ApJ
Observing the Sun with Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA): High Resolution Interferometric Imaging
Observations of the Sun at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths offer a
unique probe into the structure, dynamics, and heating of the chromosphere; the
structure of sunspots; the formation and eruption of prominences and filaments;
and energetic phenomena such as jets and flares. High-resolution observations
of the Sun at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths are challenging due to
the intense, extended, low- contrast, and dynamic nature of emission from the
quiet Sun, and the extremely intense and variable nature of emissions
associated with energetic phenomena. The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter
Array (ALMA) was designed with solar observations in mind. The requirements for
solar observations are significantly different from observations of sidereal
sources and special measures are necessary to successfully carry out this type
of observations. We describe the commissioning efforts that enable the use of
two frequency bands, the 3 mm band (Band 3) and the 1.25 mm band (Band 6), for
continuum interferometric-imaging observations of the Sun with ALMA. Examples
of high-resolution synthesized images obtained using the newly commissioned
modes during the solar commissioning campaign held in December 2015 are
presented. Although only 30 of the eventual 66 ALMA antennas were used for the
campaign, the solar images synthesized from the ALMA commissioning data reveal
new features of the solar atmosphere that demonstrate the potential power of
ALMA solar observations. The ongoing expansion of ALMA and solar-commissioning
efforts will continue to enable new and unique solar observing capabilities.Comment: 22 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in Solar Physic
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