BMI-for-age graphs with severe obesity percentile curves: Tools for plotting cross-sectional and longitudinal youth BMI data

Abstract Background Severe obesity is an important and distinct weight status classification that is associated with disease risk and is increasing in prevalence among youth. The ability to graphically present population weight status data, ranging from underweight through severe obesity class 3, is novel and applicable to epidemiologic research, intervention studies, case reports, and clinical care. Methods The aim was to create body mass index (BMI) graphing tools to generate sex-specific BMI-for-age graphs that include severe obesity percentile curves. We used the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention youth reference data sets and weight status criteria to generate the percentile curves. The statistical software environments SAS and R were used to create two different graphing options. Results This article provides graphing tools for creating sex-specific BMI-for-age graphs for males and females ages 2 to <20 years. The novel aspects of these graphing tools are an expanded BMI range to accommodate BMI values ˃35 kg/m2, inclusion of percentile curves for severe obesity classes 2 and 3, the ability to plot individual data for thousands of children and adolescents on a single graph, and the ability to generate cross-sectional and longitudinal graphs. Conclusions These new BMI graphing tools will enable investigators, public health professionals, and clinicians to view and present youth weight status data in novel and meaningful ways

Environment Energy Assessment of Trips (EEAT): An updated approach to assess the environmental impacts of urban mobility, The case of Lille Region

This paper deals with sustainable mobility in an urban context. We investigate the assessment of the impacts of the evolution of travel behaviour (travelled distance and modal choice) in terms of energy consumption and greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions at the local level. Indeed, today, the control of exhausts generated by the mobility within the urban areas is at the core of the environmental policies and the stabilisation of GHG emissions is one of the main goals of 'sustainable development'. To face this challenge in the transport sector, the national government and local authorities need a better understanding of the link between urban development choices, the operation of the different modes of transport systems, and residents and non residents' attitude, and mobility patterns at the local level.MOBILITE ; ZONE URBAINE ; POLLUTION ATMOSPHERIQUE ; ENERGIE ; CONSOMMATION DE CARBURANT

Effects of cutting regime, surroundings and field age on floral resources for pollinators in hay fields

Bees and other flower-visiting insects are experiencing periods of food shortage, particularly in intensively managed agricultural landscapes in Europe. As part of the Danish project EcoServe (http://agro.au.dk/ecoserve/) we therefore investigated whether increased richness of selected herbaceous species in organic hay fields acted as a floral resource thus enhancing abundance and biodiversity of pollinators. Moreover, we investigated if availability of floral resources was affected by cutting regime (timing and number of cuttings during the growing season) in 11 herbaceous species, which are often used in grassland seed mixtures. In a field survey, we visited 20 organic hay meadows of different age (3-100 years), and conducted surveys regularly throughout the flowering season to quantify diversity of insect-pollinated plants and pollinators. Our results showed that diversity of pollinators was significantly and positively related to diversity of plants, but that hay fields embedded in a complex landscape harbored a higher diversity of both plants and insects than hay fields in more homogeneous areas. Also, diversity of plants and insects increased in older hay meadows. In an experimental set-up, we tested the availability of flowers in plots of monocultures and a mixture of 11 herbaceous species under two cutting regimes: (1) plots were cut once every four weeks throughout the growing season, and (2) plots were cut only at the end of the flowering season. While the majority of species provided flowers for pollinators when plots were not cut during the flowering season, most plant species set few if any flowers if cut frequently. One exception was Trifolium repens, which was slightly stimulated by cutting. Thus, traditional grasslands which are frequently mowed are expected to be poor in flowers. Our results suggest that it is important to leave unmowed flower-rich areas in the fields throughout the flowering season to avoid periods of food shortage. The potential for unmowed hay fields to enhance diversity and abundance of pollinators, however, depend on the composition of the surrounding landscape and age of the field

The impact of in-season national team soccer play on injury and player availability in a professional club

This study investigated the impact of in-season national team duty on injury rates and player availability in a professional soccer club. Time-loss injuries and exposure time during club and national team duties were recorded prospectively over 5 seasons (2009–2014). A time-loss injury was sustained by 37.7% of squad members participating in national duty, all injuries occurring in match-play. The incidence (per 1000 h exposure) for national team player match-play injuries did not differ (P = 0.608) to that for all players in club competitions: 48.0 (95% CI 20.9–75.5) vs. 41.9 (95% CI 36.5–47.4), incidence rate ratio = 1.2 (CI: 0.8–2.4). The majority (58%) of national team injuries resulted in a layoff ≤1 week. Of all working days lost to injury generally, 5.2% were lost through injury on national duty. Injury incidence in the week following national duty was comparable (P = 0.818) in players participating or not: 7.8 (95% CI 3.6–12.0) vs. 7.1 (95% CI: 4.6–9.6), incidence rate ratio = 1.1 (CI: 0.7–2.7). While approximately 40% of participating players incurred a time-loss injury on national duty, no training injuries were sustained and injuries made up a negligible part of overall club working days lost to injury. Following duty, players had a similar injury risk to peers without national obligations

Hydrogen production by sorption-enhanced steam reforming of glycerol

Catalytic steam reforming of glycerol for H(2) production has been evaluated experimentally in a continuous flow fixed-bed reactor. The experiments were carried out under atmospheric pressure within a temperature range of 400-700 degrees C. A commercial Ni-based catalyst and a dolomite sorbent were used for the steam reforming reactions and in situ CO(2) removal. The product gases were measured by on-line gas analysers. The results show that H(2) productivity is greatly increased with increasing temperature and the formation of methane by-product becomes negligible above 500 degrees C. The results suggest an optimal temperature of approximately 500 degrees C for the glycerol steam reforming with in situ CO(2) removal using calcined dolomite as the sorbent, at which the CO(2) breakthrough time is longest and the H(2) purity is highest. The shrinking core model and the 1D-diffusion model describe well the CO(2) removal under the conditions of this work

Økologiske græsmarker som fødekilde for bier og andre bestøvere

Bier og andre blomsterbesøgende insekter mangler i dag føde gennem dele af året, specielt i intensivt drevne landbrugsområder. Som en del af projektet EcoServe undersøger vi derfor i hvilket omfang økologiske græsmarker, ved iblanding af udvalgte urter, kan bidrage som fødekilde og dermed til øget antal og diversitet af bestøvere

Dilogarithm Identities in Conformal Field Theory and Group Homology

Recently, Rogers' dilogarithm identities have attracted much attention in the setting of conformal field theory as well as lattice model calculations. One of the connecting threads is an identity of Richmond-Szekeres that appeared in the computation of central charges in conformal field theory. We show that the Richmond-Szekeres identity and its extension by Kirillov-Reshetikhin can be interpreted as a lift of a generator of the third integral homology of a finite cyclic subgroup sitting inside the projective special linear group of all $2 \times 2$ real matrices viewed as a {\it discrete} group. This connection allows us to clarify a few of the assertions and conjectures stated in the work of Nahm-Recknagel-Terhoven concerning the role of algebraic $K$-theory and Thurston's program on hyperbolic 3-manifolds. Specifically, it is not related to hyperbolic 3-manifolds as suggested but is more appropriately related to the group manifold of the universal covering group of the projective special linear group of all $2 \times 2$ real matrices viewed as a topological group. This also resolves the weaker version of the conjecture as formulated by Kirillov. We end with the summary of a number of open conjectures on the mathematical side.Comment: 20 pages, 2 figures not include

Representations of the fundamental group of a surface in PU(p,q) and holomorphic triples

We count the connected components in the moduli space of PU(p,q)-representations of the fundamental group for a closed oriented surface. The components are labelled by pairs of integers which arise as topological invariants of the flat bundles associated to the representations. Our results show that for each allowed value of these invariants, which are bounded by a Milnor-Wood type inequality, there is a unique non-empty connected component. Interpreting the moduli space of representations as a moduli space of Higgs bundles, we take a Morse theoretic approach using a certain smooth proper function on the Higgs moduli space. A key step is the identification of the function's local minima as moduli spaces of holomorphic triples. We prove that these moduli spaces of triples are non-empty and irreducible.Comment: 6 pages, to appear in C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris Ser. I Mat