Prevalence and clustering of cardiovascular risk factors in college students, The

2017 Fall.Includes bibliographical references.Cardiovascular disease (CVD) has been the leading cause of death in the United States for adult men and women for the last 80 years and is a major cause of disability. Additionally, CVD is the second leading cause of death in young adults ages 18 to 29. This chronic disease is typically associated with adults; however, recently CVD has been identified in the younger population as well. The literature on CVD risk factors and college students is very limited. College campuses serve as an ideal setting to examine risk factors for CVD among young adults. College life can lead to multiple changes in lifestyle including changes in activity patterns, dietary intake, sleep patterns, weight fluctuations, alcohol consumption, tobacco use, and drug use. Collectively, the impact of these behaviors sets the stage for the development of multiple risk factors associated with CVD. Therefore, the purpose of this investigation was to identify the prevalence and clustering of CVD risk factors with undergraduate students' age 18 – 25 years old enrolled at Colorado State University (CSU), during the spring semester, 2017. A non-experimental, cross-sectional research design was used to identify the prevalence and clustering of CVD risk factors in the sample. Multiple screenings were centrally located on campus for student convenience. The screening included informed consent, health history questionnaire, resting blood pressure, lipid analysis, and health and wellness questionnaire. A total of 180 students were recruited for the study. The average age was 21.40 years with a range of 18 – 25 year. Over half, 62.18 percent were female, 53.75 percent were seniors, and 81.88 percent were White. Although the study was open to the entire university, 78.62 percent were from the department of Health and Exercise Science. Students from 23 different academic departments were represented in the sample. A total of 706 CVD risk factors were identified including; 208 for nicotine use, 238 with family history of CVD, 42 for high LDLs, 32 for elevated SBP, 24 for elevated DBP, 22 for inactivity, 21 for elevated triglycerides, 20 for elevated total cholesterol, 20 for elevated blood glucose, 19 for low HDLs in males, 15 for low HDLs in females, 39 for BMI ≥ 25 kg/m2), 4 for increase in waist circumference for females, and 2 for an elevated waist circumference in males. The range of CVD risk factors per student was from zero to six. The significance in totality of CVD risk factors in this apparently healthy undergraduate student sample is startling and warrants further examination. Male students showed statistically significant higher glucose, TCHOL/HDL, SBP, and DBP, and were more likely to use cigarettes e-cigarettes, cigars, and smokeless tobacco, anabolic steroids and beer than females. Female students had a statistically significant higher total cholesterol level, HDL, and wine consumption than males. White students had a higher prevalence of hookah and smokeless tobacco, wine, liquor, drinking up to five drinks in one setting, driving after drinking alcohol, and consuming marijuana edibles. Freshmen had a statistically significant lower SBP than sophomores, and seniors. A statistically significant difference was found with seniors consuming more beer than freshman and sophomores. Seniors were also more likely to drive after drinking alcohol than freshman, sophomores, and juniors. Lastly, juniors had a statistically significant higher consumption of marijuana edibles than sophomores did. CSU undergraduate students are more likely to rank their general health as "very good" or "excellent", less likely to have a history of elevated blood pressure, more likely to use hookah, and less likely be obese when compared to undergraduate college students across the nation. Multiple correlations were identified and followed up with simultaneous multiple regressions were completed to investigate the best predictors of tobacco use, hookah use, elevated SBP, elevated DBP, BMI, and elevated total cholesterol. K-means cluster analysis provided a visual display of various groupings for family history of CVD, blood lipids and general health, blood pressure, tobacco and marijuana use, alcohol use, and general health tobacco and alcohol use combined, and drug use. Data were standardized to Z-scores for comparison. The Z-scores greater than three included cigarettes, e-cigarettes, hookah, cigars, smokeless tobacco, cocaine, methamphetamines, and other illegal drugs. Collectively, these results indicate a significant prevalence of CVD risk factors and high alcohol and drug use among the CSU student sample. It is apparent that this undergraduate college student sample may be more at risk for developing subsequent CVD than previously thought and should be screened for CVD beginning at age 20 as recommended by health and medical experts

Higher Education in Tajikistan: Institutional Landscape and Key Policy Developments

Higher education in Tajikistan has undergone substantial changes over the past 25 years as a result of both its internal crises and those social and economic transition challenges seen throughout the Newly Independent States (NIS). HEIs in the country have also shown eagerness to change and grow as they move toward world education space. In this chapter, we examine the evolution of the Tajik system of higher education from the Soviet time through independence (1991–2015) in terms of growth, emerging landscape and diversification, and key policy developments and issues. We analyze these changes in the context of relevant economic, social and political factors, and rely on a comparative analysis in understanding the commonalities and differences in higher educational landscapes between Tajikistan and others in the NIS. Institutional diversity has occurred in the country along several dimensions. Among these is a geometric expansion of the number of HEIs: Those transformed from preexisting Soviet institutes as well as the establishment of many new ones. This has been fueled partly by the mass creation of new programs that reflect the needs of an emerging knowledge-based economy but also the result of parental craving for higher education for their children—regardless of market demands. Specific features of the massification of higher education in Tajikistan are further explained by internationalization according to the Bologna Process and other globalization agendas; the establishment of international HEIs under bilateral government agreements (with Russia), and significantly increasing HEI programs and enrolments in far-flung regions of the country—especially in programs related to industry and technology. Our analyses are based on a variety of official statistical sources; educational laws, institutional documents and reports published by international organizations; accounts from the English-language press; and open-ended interviews conducted by the authors in Tajikistan between 2011 and 2014

Working memory and attention in choice.

We study the role of attention and working memory in choices where options are presented sequentially rather than simultaneously. We build a model where a costly attention effort is chosen, which can vary over time. Evidence is accumulated proportionally to this effort and the utility of the reward. Crucially, the evidence accumulated decays over time. Optimal attention allocation maximizes expected utility from final choice; the optimal solution takes the decay into account, so attention is preferentially devoted to later times; but convexity of the flow attention cost prevents it from being concentrated near the end. We test this model with a choice experiment where participants observe sequentially two options. In our data the option presented first is, everything else being equal, significantly less likely to be chosen. This recency effect has a natural explanation with appropriate parameter values in our model of leaky evidence accumulation, where the decline is stronger for the option observed first. Analysis of choice, response time and brain imaging data provide support for the model. Working memory plays an essential role. The recency bias is stronger for participants with weaker performance in working memory tasks. Also activity in parietal areas, coding the stored value in working, declines over time as predicted

A study of high-altitude manned research aircraft employing strut-braced wings of high-aspect-ratio

The effect of increased wing aspect ratio of subsonic aircraft on configurations with and without strut bracing. Results indicate that an optimum cantilever configuration, with a wing aspect ratio of approximately 26, has a 19% improvement in cruise range when compared to a baseline concept with a wing aspect ratio of approximately 10. An optimum strut braced configuration, with a wing aspect ratio of approximately 28, has a 31% improvment in cruise range when compared to the same baseline concept. This improvement is mainly due to the estimated reduction in wing weight resulting from use of lifting struts. All configurations assume the same mission payload and fuel. The drag characteristics of the wings are enhanced with the use of laminar flow airfoils. A method for determining the extent of attainable natural laminar flow, and methods for preliminary structural design and for aerodynamic analysis of wings lifting struts are presented

Remote clocks linked by a fully calibrated two-way timing link

Fully calibrated two-way time transfers between the U.S. Naval Observatory (USNO) and the U.S. Naval Observatory Time Service Substation (NOTSS) have become operational. The calibration method employed was the co-located Earth station method. Results concerning timing, stability, comparison of two-way and Global Positioning System (GPS) timing links, and remote clock contribution to local time scale computation will be presented

Exploiting neutron-rich radioactive ion beams to constrain the symmetry energy

The Modular Neutron Array (MoNA) and 4 Tm Sweeper magnet were used to measure the free neutrons and heavy charged particles from the radioactive ion beam induced 32Mg + 9Be reaction. The fragmentation reaction was simulated with the Constrained Molecular Dynamics model(CoMD), which demonstrated that the of the heavy fragments and free neutron multiplicities were observables sensitive to the density dependence of the symmetry energy at sub-saturation densities. Through comparison of these simulations with the experimental data constraints on the density dependence of the symmetry energy were extracted. The advantage of radioactive ion beams as a probe of the symmetry energy is demonstrated through examination of CoMD calculations for stable and radioactive beam induced reactions

Search for unbound 15Be states in the 3n+12Be channel

15Be is expected to have low-lying 3/2+ and 5/2+ states. A first search did not observe the 3/2+ [A. Spyrou et al., Phys. Rev. C 84, 044309 (2011)], however, a resonance in 15Be was populated in a second attempt and determined to be unbound with respect to 14Be by 1.8(1) MeV with a tentative spin-parity assignment of 5/2+ [J. Snyder et al., Phys. Rev. C 88, 031303(R) (2013)]. Search for the predicted 15Be 3/2+ state in the three-neutron decay channel. A two-proton removal reaction from a 55 MeV/u 17C beam was used to populate neutron-unbound states in 15Be. The two-, three-, and four-body decay energies of the 12Be + neutron(s) detected in coincidence were reconstructed using invariant mass spectroscopy. Monte Carlo simulations were performed to extract the resonance and decay properties from the observed spectra. The low-energy regions of the decay energy spectra can be described with the first excited unbound state of 14Be (E_x=1.54 MeV, E_r=0.28 MeV). Including a state in 15Be that decays through the first excited 14Be state slightly improves the fit at higher energies though the cross section is small. A 15Be component is not needed to describe the data. If the 3/2+ state in 15Be is populated, the decay by three-neutron emission through 14Be is weak, less than or equal to 11% up to 4 MeV. In the best fit, 15Be is unbound with respect to 12Be by 1.4 MeV (unbound with respect to $14Be by 2.66 MeV) with a strength of 7%.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, accepted in Physical Review

Population of neutron unbound states via two-proton knockout reactions

The two-proton knockout reaction 9Be(26Ne,O2p) was used to explore excited unbound states of 23O and 24O. In 23O a state at an excitation energy of 2.79(13) MeV was observed. There was no conclusive evidence for the population of excited states in 24O.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, Proc. 9th Int. Spring Seminar on Nucl. Phys. Changing Facets of Nuclear Structure, May 20-34, 200

First Observation of 15Be

The neutron-unbound nucleus 15Be was observed for the first time. It was populated using neutron transfer from a deuterated polyethylene target with a 59 MeV/u 14Be beam. Neutrons were measured in coincidence with outgoing 14Be particles and the reconstructed decay energy spectrum exhibits a resonance at 1.8(1) MeV. This corresponds to 15Be being unbound by 0.45 MeV more then 16Be thus significantly hindering the sequential two-neutron decay of 16Be to 14Be through this state