Understanding environmental and contextual influences of physical activity during first-year university: the feasibility of using ecological momentary assessment in the MovingU study

Background: It is well established that drastic declines in physical activity (PA) occur during young adults’ transition into university; however, our understanding of contextual and environmental factors as it relates to young adults’ PA is limited. Objective: The purpose of our study was to examine the feasibility of using wrist-worn accelerometers and the use of ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to assess the context and momentary correlates of PA on multiple occasions each day during first-year university. Methods: First-year university students were asked to participate in the study. The participants completed a brief questionnaire and were subsequently asked to wear an ActiGraph GT9X-Link accelerometer and respond to a series of EMA prompts (7/day) via their phones for 5 consecutive days. Results: A total of 96 first-year university students with smartphones agreed to participate in the study (mean age 18.3 [SD 0.51]; n=45 females). Overall, there was good compliance for wearing the accelerometers, with 91% (78/86) of the participants having ≥2 days of ≥10 hours of wear time (mean=3.53 valid days). Students were generally active, averaging 10,895 steps/day (SD 3413) or 1123.23 activity counts/min (SD 356.10). Compliance to EMA prompts was less desirable, with 64% (55/86) of the participants having usable EMA data (responding to a minimum of ≥3 days of 3 prompts/day or ≥4 days of 2 prompts/day), and only 47% (26/55) of these participants were considered to have excellent EMA compliance (responding to ≥5 days of 4 prompts/day or ≥ 4 days of 5 prompts/day). Conclusions: This study represents one of the first studies to use an intensive real-time data capture strategy to examine time-varying correlates of PA among first-year university students. These data will aim to describe the physical and social contexts in which PA occurs and examine the relationships between momentary correlates of PA among the first-year university students. Overall, current results suggest that wrist-worn accelerometers and EMA are feasible methods for data collection among the young adult population; however, more work is needed to understand how to improve upon compliance to a real-time data capture method such as EMA

H.D and Modernity

En 1912, sous l’impulsion d’Ezra Pound, Hilda Doolittle devient « H.D. Imagiste », et son nom, l’éternelle pierre de touche d’un des mouvements fondateurs du premier modernisme. Pourtant, Hilda Doolittle est, dans la durée, l’auteur d’une œuvre riche et diversifiée (poésie, essais, fiction, traduction, écrits autobiographiques), qui traverse un demi-siècle chaotique, de son entrée sur la scène littéraire dans les pages de la revue Poetry en janvier 1913 à sa mort en 1961. Comment cerner les rapports ambivalents qui s’établissent entre la fascination qu’entretient H.D. pour les cultures antiques et sa confrontation quotidienne avec une modernité déroutante, quand elle n’est pas radicalement déstabilisante ? Helléniste accomplie, traductrice d’Euripide, passionnée de religion et de mythologie, H.D. situe l’ensemble de son œuvre sous l’égide d’Hermès, le dieu messager cryptique. De « Hermes of the Ways » (1913) à Hermetic Definition et à Helen in Egypt (1961), H.D. compose des textes complexes où la modernité se donne à comprendre entre les lignes (entre les signes) de l’atavisme archaïque, livrant une nouvelle lecture du monde, à la fois révélatoire et médusante.In 1912, at Ezra Pound’s instigation, Hilda Doolittle became “H.D. Imagiste”, her name forever tied to one of the crucial, albeit short-lived aesthetic movements adumbrating High Modernism. Yet H.D. subsequently produced a rich and varied body of work comprising poetry, essays, translations, fiction and autobiographical writings, spanning an exceptionally chaotic half-century, from her first poems published in the January 1913 issue of Poetry until her death in 1961. How should one appraise the ambivalence lying in H.D.’s fascination for ancient cultures and her daily struggle with a baffling, at times even deeply unsettling modernity? A gifted classicist and translator of Euripides with a passion for religions and mythologies, H.D. places her whole literary production under the sign of Hermes, the cryptic god messenger. From “Hermes of the Ways” (1913) to Hermetic Definition and Helen in Egypt (1961), H.D. produces a whole range of complex writings, where modernity emerges between the lines (between the signs) of her atavistic archaism, thereby offering a new hermeneutics, both revelatory and mesmerizing