Does low volume high-intensity interval training elicit superior benefits to continuous low to moderate-intensity training in cancer survivors?

AIM To determine the impact of low volume high-intensity interval training (LVHIIT) and continuous low to moderate- intensity exercise training (CLMIT) on cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk and health outcomes in cancer survivors. METHODS Sedentary cancer survivors (n = 75, aged 51 ± 12 year) within 24 months of diagnosis, were randomised into three groups for 12 wk of LVHIIT (n = 25), CLMIT (n = 25) or control group (n = 25). The exercise intervention involved 36 sessions (three sessions per week). The LVHIIT group performed 7 × 30 s intervals (≥ 85% predicted maximal heart rate) with a 60 s rest between intervals, and the CLMIT group performed continuous aerobic training for 20 min (≤ 55% predicted maximal heart rate) on a stationary bike. Outcome variables were measured at baseline and at 12 weeks and analysed using a 3 × 2 (group × time) repeated measures ANCOVA to evaluate main and interaction effects. RESULTS Significant improvements (time) were observed for seven of the 22 variables (ES 0.35-0.97, P ≤ 0.05). There was an interaction effect (P < 0.01) after 12 wk in the LVHIIT group for six-minute walk test (P < 0.01; d = 0.97; 95%CI: 0.36, 1.56; large), sit to stand test (P < 0.01; d = -0.83; 95%CI: -1.40, -0.22; large ) and waist circumference reduction (P = 0.01; d = -0.48; 95%CI: -1.10, 0.10; medium). An interaction effect (P < 0.01) was also observed for quality of life in both the LVHIIT (d = 1.11; 95%CI: 0.50, 1.72; large) and CLMIT (d = 0.57; 95%CI: -0.00, 1.20; moderate) compared with the control group (d = -0.15; 95%CI: -0.95, 0.65; trivial). CONCLUSION Low-volume high-intensity training shows promise as an effective exercise prescription within the cancer population, showing greater improvements in cardiorespiratory fitness, lower body strength and waist circumference compared with traditional CLMIT and control groups. Both LVHIIT and CLMIT improved quality of life. A proposed benefit of LVHIIT is the short duration (3 min) of exercise required, which may entice more cancer survivors to participate in exercise, improving health outcomes and lowing the risk of CV

Oceans across the solar system and the search for extraoceanic life: technologies for remote sensing and in situ exploration

Earth’s ocean comprises 99% of the habitable volume of our planet and contains the largest biomass and species diversity in the known universe. Perhaps unsurprisingly, recent advances in the search for life elsewhere in our solar system have increasingly pointed to potentially viable niches for life on other dynamic ocean worlds such as Titan, Europa, and Enceladus, among other moons of the outer gas giants. Indeed, the discovery of extraterrestrial life on these icy water bodies may motivate adopting an altogether new terminology and further non-anthropic perspective on the cosmos. Extraoceanic life, to coin a term, may well prove to be a designation more representative of the abundance and diversity of life in space. Exploration of such ocean worlds across the solar system will undoubtedly be enabled by technological developments in a range of sensing methodologies primarily developed for oceanography on Earth. As we have learned studying our home ocean, where less than 10% of the benthic surface has been optically imaged, the challenge is daunting, yet recent advances give hope. Here, we review some of the state-of-the-art techniques from oceanography and planetary science that may inform sensing of the biological and geophysical properties of ocean worlds, ranging from large-scale synoptic views afforded by active and passive remote sensing to in situ autonomous sampling and methods for detecting biosignatures

Science Overview of the Europa Clipper Mission

The goal of NASA’s Europa Clipper mission is to assess the habitability of Jupiter’s moon Europa. After entering Jupiter orbit in 2030, the flight system will collect science data while flying past Europa 49 times at typical closest approach distances of 25–100 km. The mission’s objectives are to investigate Europa’s interior (ice shell and ocean), composition, and geology; the mission will also search for and characterize any current activity including possible plumes. The science objectives will be accomplished with a payload consisting of remote sensing and in-situ instruments. Remote sensing investigations cover the ultraviolet, visible, near infrared, and thermal infrared wavelength ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum, as well as an ice-penetrating radar. In-situ investigations measure the magnetic field, dust grains, neutral gas, and plasma surrounding Europa. Gravity science will be achieved using the telecommunication system, and a radiation monitoring engineering subsystem will provide complementary science data. The flight system is designed to enable all science instruments to operate and gather data simultaneously. Mission planning and operations are guided by scientific requirements and observation strategies, while appropriate updates to the plan will be made tactically as the instruments and Europa are characterized and discoveries emerge. Following collection and validation, all science data will be archived in NASA’s Planetary Data System. Communication, data sharing, and publication policies promote visibility, collaboration, and mutual interdependence across the full Europa Clipper science team, to best achieve the interdisciplinary science necessary to understand Europa

In amongst the glitter and the squashed blueberries: Crafting a collaborative lens for children’s literacy pedagogy in a community setting

In this article, we bring together relational arts practice (Kester, 2004) with collaborative ethnography (Campbell and Lassiter, 2015) in order to propose art not as a way of teaching children literacy, but as a lens to enable researchers and practitioners to view children’s literacies differently. Both relational arts practice and collaborative ethnography decentre researcher/artist expertise, providing an understanding that “knowing” is embodied, material and tacit (Ingold, 2013). This has led us to extend understandings of multimodal literacy to stress the embodied and situated nature of meaning making, viewed through a collaborative lens (Hackett, 2014a; Heydon and Rowsell, 2015; Kuby et al, 2015; Pahl and Pool, 2011). We illustrate this approach to researching literacy pedagogy by offering a series of “little” (Olsson, 2013) moments of place/body memory (Somerville, 2013), which emerged from our collaborative dialogic research at a series of den building events for families and their young children. Within our study, an arts practice lens offered a more situated, and entwined way of working that led to joint and blurred outcomes in relation to literacy pedagogy

New Frontiers-class Uranus Orbiter: Exploring the feasibility of achieving multidisciplinary science with a mid-scale mission

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The Problematization of Sexuality among Women Living with HIV and a New Feminist Approach for Understanding and Enhancing Women’s Sexual Lives

In the context of HIV, women’s sexual rights and sexual autonomy are important but frequently overlooked and violated. Guided by community voices, feminist theories, and qualitative empirical research, we reviewed two decades of global quantitative research on sexuality among women living with HIV. In the 32 studies we found, conducted in 25 countries and composed mostly of cis-gender heterosexual women, sexuality was narrowly constructed as sexual behaviours involving risk (namely, penetration) and physiological dysfunctions relating to HIV illness, with far less attention given to the fullness of sexual lives in context, including more&nbsp;positive and rewarding experiences such as satisfaction and pleasure. Findings suggest that women experience declines in sexual activity, function, satisfaction, and pleasure following HIV diagnosis, at least for some period. The extent of such declines, however, is varied, with numerous contextual forces shaping women’s sexual well-being. Clinical markers of HIV (e.g., viral load, CD4 cell count) poorly predicted sexual outcomes, interrupting widely held assumptions about sexuality for women with HIV. Instead, the effects of HIV-related stigma intersecting with inequities related to trauma, violence, intimate relations, substance use, poverty, aging, and other social and cultural conditions primarily influenced the ways in which women experienced and enacted their sexuality. However, studies framed through a medical lens tended to pathologize outcomes as individual “problems,” whereas others driven by a public health agenda remained primarily preoccupied with protecting the public from HIV. In light of these findings, we present a new feminist approach for research, policy, and practice toward understanding and enhancing women’s sexual lives—one that affirms sexual diversity; engages deeply with society, politics, and history; and is grounded in women’s sexual rights

Genetic effects on gene expression across human tissues

Characterization of the molecular function of the human genome and its variation across individuals is essential for identifying the cellular mechanisms that underlie human genetic traits and diseases. The Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) project aims to characterize variation in gene expression levels across individuals and diverse tissues of the human body, many of which are not easily accessible. Here we describe genetic effects on gene expression levels across 44 human tissues. We find that local genetic variation affects gene expression levels for the majority of genes, and we further identify inter-chromosomal genetic effects for 93 genes and 112 loci. On the basis of the identified genetic effects, we characterize patterns of tissue specificity, compare local and distal effects, and evaluate the functional properties of the genetic effects. We also demonstrate that multi-tissue, multi-individual data can be used to identify genes and pathways affected by human disease-associated variation, enabling a mechanistic interpretation of gene regulation and the genetic basis of diseas