Can evolutionary mismatch help generate interest in health promotion messages?

Background: Generating interest in health interventions is an important first step towards engagement with health promotion and effecting behaviour change. This study explored whether framing health information about physical activity and diet from an evolutionary mismatch perspective could help to generate interest in health promotion among overweight and inactive adults. Evolutionary mismatch theory proposes that human cultural evolution has occurred too rapidly for biological evolution to keep up, creating a mismatch between genes and lifestyles that gives rise to chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes. Method: A total of 18 adults completed interviews in which they viewed and discussed a variety of mismatch-framed health information resources. Follow-up questions assessed if and what participants had thought about the information in the week after the interview. Transcripts were thematically analysed. Results: Participants found the evolutionary perspective to be novel and interesting. It also provided a meaningful rationale for behaviour change. However, there was some evidence of negative elaboration, which would need to be managed if implementing this approach. Conclusion: Adopting a mismatch perspective can help to engage audiences with important health information.</p

Plan estratégico urbano sostenible para el corredor del tren Heredia - San José: Pautas de diseño para una estación intermodal en Santa Rosa de Santo Domingo de Heredia

Los espacios en las ciudades son los que determinan en gran medida el desarrollo de las actividades básicas de las personas como lo son la vivienda, el trabajo, la educación, la recreación y la salud, entre otros. En la GAM como en otras áreas metropolitanas del mundo, la dispersión de usos y funciones en el territorio provoca que las personas tengan que desplazarse a veces de manera difusa y en otras de una manera muy predecible. Una ciudad planificada y que tiene por objetivo alcanzar el bienestar de sus habitantes y visitantes, debe garantizar el acceso a los servicios básicos de manera inclusiva y ambientalmente sostenible. Es así, como la movilidad urbana, la sostenibilidad de las ciudades y la calidad de vida de las personas, son temas que junto con la planificación estratégica territorial han venido cobrando importancia. Posada (2014), indica que actualmente las ciudades deben enfocar su modelo de desarrollo urbano hacia el bienestar, en donde se articulen los elementos físicos, medio ambientales y las actividades económicas utilizando el plan estratégico como herramienta de gestión. Actualmente, el país no cuenta con estudios enfocados a la planificación estratégica urbano sostenible que incentiven la intermodalidad y la planificación del uso de los medios de transporte colectivos y no motorizados. Por lo que, es aquí donde esta investigación adquiere importancia, ya que se aborda la planificación estratégica bajo nuevos conceptos y en el marco de un nuevo enfoque. Por tanto, considerando las necesidades de desplazamiento de las personas, la configuración del territorio, la proximidad a los servicios básicos y la accesibilidad a los distintos medios de transporte a lo largo del corredor del tren Heredia-San José; este estudio propone un plan estratégico urbano enfocado al bienestar, accesibilidad, confort e inclusión de las personas.UCR::Vicerrectoría de Investigación::Sistema de Estudios de Posgrado::Ingeniería::Maestría Profesional en Desarrollo Urbano y Gestión Territoria

Can evolutionary mismatch help generate interest in health promotion messages?

Background: Generating interest in health interventions is an important first step towards engagement with health promotion and effecting behaviour change. This study explored whether framing health information about physical activity and diet from an evolutionary mismatch perspective could help to generate interest in health promotion among overweight and inactive adults. Evolutionary mismatch theory proposes that human cultural evolution has occurred too rapidly for biological evolution to keep up, creating a mismatch between genes and lifestyles that gives rise to chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes. Method: A total of 18 adults completed interviews in which they viewed and discussed a variety of mismatch-framed health information resources. Follow-up questions assessed if and what participants had thought about the information in the week after the interview. Transcripts were thematically analysed. Results: Participants found the evolutionary perspective to be novel and interesting. It also provided a meaningful rationale for behaviour change. However, there was some evidence of negative elaboration, which would need to be managed if implementing this approach. Conclusion: Adopting a mismatch perspective can help to engage audiences with important health information. </jats:sec

The prestellar and protostellar population of R Coronae Australis

We present 450 and 850 um maps of R Coronae Australis. We compare the maps to previous surveys of the region, and shed new light on the previously unknown nature of the protostellar sources at the centre of the cloud. We clarify the nature of two millimetre sources previously discovered in lower resolution data. We identify one new Class 0 protostar that we label SMM 1B, and we measure the envelope masses of a number of more evolved protostars. We identify two new prestellar cores that we call SMM 1A and SMM 6.Comment: 8 page

Helping Business Schools Engage with Real Problems: The Contribution of Critical Realism and Systems Thinking

The world faces major problems, not least climate change and the financial crisis, and business schools have been criticised for their failure to help address these issues and, in the case of the financial meltdown, for being causally implicated in it. In this paper we begin by describing the extent of what has been called the rigour/relevance debate. We then diagnose the nature of the problem in terms of historical, structural and contextual mechanisms that initiated and now sustain an inability of business schools to engage with real-world issues. We then propose a combination of measures, which mutually reinforce each other, that are necessary to break into this vicious circle – critical realism as an underpinning philosophy that supports and embodies the next points; holism and transdisciplinarity; multimethodology (mixed-methods research); and a critical and ethical-committed stance. OR and management science have much to contribute in terms of both powerful analytical methods and problem structuring methods

Severe malnutrition or famine exposure in childhood and cardiometabolic non-communicable disease later in life: a systematic review.

INTRODUCTION: Child malnutrition (undernutrition) and adult non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are major global public health problems. While convincing evidence links prenatal malnutrition with increased risk of NCDs, less is known about the long-term sequelae of malnutrition in childhood. We therefore examined evidence of associations between postnatal malnutrition, encompassing documented severe childhood malnutrition in low/middle-income countries (LMICs) or famine exposure, and later-life cardiometabolic NCDs. METHODS: Our peer-reviewed search strategy focused on 'severe childhood malnutrition', 'LMICs', 'famine', and 'cardiometabolic NCDs' to identify studies in Medline, Embase, Global Health, and the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) databases. We synthesised results narratively and assessed study quality with the UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence checklist. RESULTS: We identified 57 studies of cardiometabolic NCD outcomes in survivors of documented severe childhood malnutrition in LMICs (n=14) and historical famines (n=43). Exposure to severe malnutrition or famine in childhood was consistently associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease (7/8 studies), hypertension (8/11), impaired glucose metabolism (15/24) and metabolic syndrome (6/6) in later life. Evidence for effects on lipid metabolism (6/11 null, 5/11 mixed findings), obesity (3/13 null, 5/13 increased risk, 5/13 decreased risk) and other outcomes was less consistent. Sex-specific differences were observed in some cohorts, with women consistently at higher risk of glucose metabolism disorders and metabolic syndrome. CONCLUSION: Severe malnutrition or famine during childhood is associated with increased risk of cardiometabolic NCDs, suggesting that developmental plasticity extends beyond prenatal life. Severe malnutrition in childhood thus has serious implications not only for acute morbidity and mortality but also for survivors' long-term health. Heterogeneity across studies, confounding by prenatal malnutrition, and age effects in famine studies preclude firm conclusions on causality. Research to improve understanding of mechanisms linking postnatal malnutrition and NCDs is needed to inform policy and programming to improve the lifelong health of severe malnutrition survivors

Hand-drawn resistors, capacitors, diodes, and circuits for a pressure sensor system on paper

Hand-written fabrication techniques offer new ways of developing customizable, biodegradable and low-cost electronic systems. In this work, a new level of complexity is demonstrated for hand-written electronics by fabricating passive components, circuits and a sensorsystem on paper. The system comprises a pencil-written graphite force-sensitive-resistor, a pencil-drawn RC-filter, a pen-written half-wave rectifier, and a commercial front-end voltage amplifier. The sensor system exhibits a linear response for pressures up to 1.2 kPa, and a sensitivity of 51 mV kPa-1 . Furthermore, the electrical and mechanical performance of the single components and circuits is studied. Diodes fabricated through pen-written deposition of silver and nickel contacts on amorphous Indium-Gallium-Zinc-Oxide coated paper show rectification ratios up to 1:8. Tensile and compressive bending measurements applied to all pencil-written components for radii down to 0.1 mm indicate minor influence of strain. Similar results are obtained for circuits created from these individual components. Diodes and half-wave rectifiers show a stable behavior when bent to a radius of 5 mm. The presented techniques can enable the development of flexible and eco-friendly wearables and sensors for consumer and healthcare applications, and are an effective way for school-pupils to explore the world of electronics