Correlates of Active School Transport Immediately Before and After the Transition from Primary to Secondary School: A Pilot-Study

The transition from primary to secondary school is a major life event associated with large decreases in physical activity levels. Cross-sectional studies also suggest that secondary school students are less likely to engage in active school transport (AST; e.g. walking and cycling to/from school). To our knowledge, no longitudinal study has previously examined the correlates of AST immediately before and after the school transition. This pilot-study assessed: 1) the concordance between child- and parent-perceived barriers to AST (with Spearman correlations); 2) the associations of AST with child- and parent-perceived barriers to AST, parental neighborhood selection factors and socio-demographic characteristics (using Fisher’s exact test). Participants were recruited in four K-6 schools (where children are required to change school after grade 6) located in census tracts with varying population density in Ottawa (Canada). All assessments were done at baseline and follow-up with respectively 49 and 29 participants. Substantial concordance was found between child- and parent-perceived barriers to AST at baseline, but not at follow-up; this might reflect the novelty of the route and the secondary school environment. Distance between home and school was the strongest barrier to AST while road safety concerns and the perception of having too much stuff to carry were also important barriers to AST. Children were more likely to engage in AST when their parents reported that they chose their neighborhood so that their children could easily walk or bike to school; thus future studies should take parental neighborhood selection into account. These findings should contribute to inform future research informing the development of policies and interventions to promote AST

Options for rural water supply

This paper illustrates the importance of community involvement in rural water supply projects by examples taken from the authors work in Zimbabwe and South Africa. It further examines the options of commercially produced handpumps against pumps manufactured at village level, and the broader choices of borehole development, spring supply, and photovoltaic pumping (PVP). The principal objective of the Zimbabwe work is to assist rural farmers to become self sufficient in food production, and to improve nutrition levels through dry season vegetable production. However, the technology developed was also applied by the local communities to water supply. The projects in Southern KwaZulu Natal are concerned with village water supply. The Crisis Intervention Program (CIP) aimed to provide primary water supply to communities suffering from drought and lack of infrastructure

Effectiveness of active school transport interventions : a systematic review and update

Background: Active school transport (AST) is a promising strategy to increase children's physical activity. A systematic review published in 2011 found large heterogeneity in the effectiveness of interventions in increasing AST and highlighted several limitations of previous research. We provide a comprehensive update of that review. Methods: Replicating the search of the previous review, we screened the PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane, Sport Discus and National Transportation Library databases for articles published between February 1, 2010 and October 15, 2016. To be eligible, studies had to focus on school-aged children and adolescents, include an intervention related to school travel, and report a measure of travel behaviors. We assessed quality of individual studies with the Effective Public Health Practice Project quality assessment tool, and overall quality of evidence with the Grades of Recommendation, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) approach. We calculated Cohen's d as a measure of effect size. Results: Out of 6318 potentially relevant articles, 27 articles reporting 30 interventions met our inclusion criteria. Thirteen interventions resulted in an increase in AST, 8 found no changes, 4 reported inconsistent results, and 5 did not report inferential statistics. Cohen's d ranged from -0.61 to 0.75, with most studies reporting "trivial-to-small" positive effect sizes. Three studies reported greater increases in AST over longer follow-up periods and two Safe Routes to School studies noted that multi-level interventions were more effective. Study quality was rated as weak for 27/30 interventions (due notably to lack of blinding of outcome assessors, unknown psychometric properties of measurement tools, and limited control for confounders), and overall quality of evidence was rated as low. Evaluations of implementation suggested that interventions were limited by insufficient follow-up duration, incomplete implementation of planned interventions, and limited access to resources for low-income communities. Conclusions: Interventions may increase AST among children; however, there was substantial heterogeneity across studies and quality of evidence remains low. Future studies should include longer follow-ups, use standardized outcome measures (to allow for meta-analyses), and examine potential moderators and mediators of travel behavior change to help refine current interventions. Trial registration: Registered in PROSPERO: CRD4201603325

Power Output of Fast and Slow Skeletal Muscles of MDX (Dystrophic) and Control Mice After Clenbuterol Treatment

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72380/1/j.1469-445X.2000.02018.x.pd

The school of hard knocks: combat leadership in the American expeditionary forces

Doctor of PhilosophyDepartment of HistoryMichael A. RamsayThis dissertation examines combat leadership in the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) in infantry and machine gun units at the company level and below to highlight the linkages between the training and professional development of junior officers and noncommissioned officers (NCOs) and the army's overall military effectiveness in World War I. Between 1865 and 1918, the growing lethality of the battlefield had forced changes to tactics and formations that placed novel demands on small unit leaders. The proliferation of new weapons in infantry companies and the thinning and extension of formations required junior officers and NCOs able to exercise an unparalleled degree of initiative and independence while also mastering new tactical and technical skills. When the United States entered World War I, the Regular Army was still grappling with how to reconcile its traditional expectations of small unit leadership with the new "skill sets" required of junior leaders in modern warfare. Faced with the need to produce officers and NCOs to lead its rapidly expanding mass army, the regulars improvised a system for identifying, training, and assigning company-level leaders. Unfortunately, the Regular Army's unpreparedness to wage a modern war, and the host of systemic problems associated with raising a mass army, meant that much of the training of these key leaders was so ill-focused and incomplete that the new officers and NCOs were woefully unprepared to face the tactical challenges that awaited them in France. These problems were only compounded when unexpected casualties among officers and NCOs in the summer and fall of 1918 led to a further curtailment in leader training the U. S. Army. The end result of the U. S. Army's failure to adequately train and develop its junior leaders was that its combat units often lacked the flexibility and "know how" to fight without suffering prohibitively high casualties. When the junior leaders failed, faltered and bungled, the AEF's battles became confused and uncoordinated slugging matches that confounded the plans and expectations of the army's senior leaders. The heavy casualties that resulted from these slugging matches further undermined the AEF's effectiveness by reducing the morale and cohesion of the army's combat units and hindering the army's overall ability to learn from its mistakes due to the high turn-over of junior officers and NCOs

Role of dynein, dynactin, and CLIP-170 interactions in LIS1 kinetochore function

Mutations in the human LIS1 gene cause type I lissencephaly, a severe brain developmental disease involving gross disorganization of cortical neurons. In lower eukaryotes, LIS1 participates in cytoplasmic dynein-mediated nuclear migration. We previously reported that mammalian LIS1 functions in cell division and coimmunoprecipitates with cytoplasmic dynein and dynactin. We also localized LIS1 to the cell cortex and kinetochores of mitotic cells, known sites of dynein action. We now find that the COOH-terminal WD repeat region of LIS1 is sufficient for kinetochore targeting. Overexpression of this domain or full-length LIS1 displaces CLIP-170 from this site without affecting dynein and other kinetochore markers. The NH2-terminal self-association domain of LIS1 displaces endogenous LIS1 from the kinetochore, with no effect on CLIP-170, dynein, and dynactin. Displacement of the latter proteins by dynamitin overexpression, however, removes LIS1, suggesting that LIS1 binds to the kinetochore through the motor protein complexes and may interact with them directly. We find that of 12 distinct dynein and dynactin subunits, the dynein heavy and intermediate chains, as well as dynamitin, interact with the WD repeat region of LIS1 in coexpression/coimmunoprecipitation and two-hybrid assays. Within the heavy chain, interactions are with the first AAA repeat, a site strongly implicated in motor function, and the NH2-terminal cargo-binding region. Together, our data suggest a novel role for LIS1 in mediating CLIP-170–dynein interactions and in coordinating dynein cargo-binding and motor activities