The life and health challenges of young Malaysian couples: results from a stakeholder consensus and engagement study to support non-communicable disease prevention

BACKGROUND: Malaysia faces burgeoning obesity and diabetes epidemics with a 250% and 88% increase respectively between 1996 and 2006. Identifying the health challenges of young adults in Malaysia, who constitute 27.5 % of the population, is critical for NCD prevention. The aim of the study was two-fold: (1) to achieve consensus amongst stakeholders on the most important challenge impacting the health of young adults, and (2) to engage with stakeholders to formulate a NCD prevention framework.METHODS: The Delphi Technique was utilised to achieve group consensus around the most important life and health challenges that young adults face in Malaysia. Subsequently, the results of the consensus component were shared with the stakeholders in an engagement workshop to obtain input on a NCD prevention framework.RESULTS: We found that life stress was a significant concern. It would seem that the apathy towards pursuing or maintaining a healthy lifestyle among young adults may be significantly influenced by the broader distal determinant of life stress. The high cost of living is suggested to be the main push factor for young working adults towards attaining better financial security to improve their livelihood. In turn, this leads to a more stressful lifestyle with less time to focus on healthier lifestyle choices.CONCLUSIONS: The findings highlight a pivotal barrier to healthier lifestyles. By assisting young adults to cope with daily living coupled with realistic opportunities to make healthier dietary choices, be more active, and less sedentary could assist in the development of NCD health promotion strategies<br/

Utilization of purines and other nitrogen compounds nit and ty-1 mutants

Utilization of N compounds by nit and ty-1 mutant

The relationships between high latitude convection reversals and the energetic particle morphology observed by the Atmosphere Explorer

Simultaneous measurements of the auroral zone particle precipitation and the ion convection velocity by Atmosphere Explorer show a consistent difference between the location of the poleward boundary of the auroral particle precipitation and the ion convection reversal. The difference of about 1.5 degrees of invariant latitude is such that some part of the antisunward convection lies wholly within the auroral particle precipitation region. The nature of the convection reversals within the precipitation region suggests that in this region the convection electric field is generated on closed field lines that connect in the magnetosphere to the low latitude boundary layer

Ion Drift Meter for Dynamics Explorer

The ion drift meter for Dynamics Explorer B is discussed. It measures two mutually perpendicular angles of arrival of thermal ions with respect to the sensor look directions. These angles lie in the vertical and horizontal planes and may be thought of as pitch and yaw in the conventional aerodynamic sense. The components of the ion drift velocity along vertical and horizontal axes through the spacecraft body are derived to first order from knowledge of the spacecraft velocity vector and more accurately with additional knowledge of the component of ion drift along the sensor look direction

Soft Tissue to Hard Tissue Advancement Ratios for Mandibular Elongation Using Distraction Osteogenesis in Children

Distraction osteogenesis is extensively used for the elongation of hypoplastic mandibles in children, yet the soft tissue profile response to this is not well understood. The pre- and posttreatment lateral cephalometric radiographs of 27 pediatric patients who underwent bilateral mandibular elongation using distraction osteogenesis were analyzed retrospectively to correlate horizontal soft tissue advancement with horizontal underlying bone advancement at B point and pogonion. Horizontal advancement (in millimeters) of bone and overlying soft tissue at these points was collected from the radiographs of each patient, and linear regression analysis was performed to determine the relationship of hard to soft tissue horizontal advancement at these points. A 1:0.90 mean ratio of bone to soft tissue advancement was observed at B point/labiomental sulcus and at pogonion/soft tissue pogonion (linear regression analysis demonstrated slopes [β1 values] of 0.94 and 0.92, respectively). These ratios were consistent throughout the sample population and are highly predictive of the soft tissue response that can be anticipated. Magnitude of advancement, age, and sex of the patient had no effect on these ratios in our population. This study assists with our understanding of the soft tissue response that accompanies bony elongation during distraction osteogenesis which will allow us to more effectively treatment plan the orthodontic and surgical intervention that will optimize the patients\u27 functional and esthetic outcome

Population of human ventricular cell models calibrated with in vivo measurements unravels ionic mechanisms of cardiac alternans

Cardiac alternansis an important risk factor in cardiac physiology, and is related to the initiation of many pathophysiological conditions. However, the mechanisms underlying the generation of alternans remain unclear. In this study, we used a population of computational human ventricle models based onthe O’Hara model [1] to explore the effect of 11 key factors experimentally reported to be related to alternans. In vivo experimental datasets coming from patients undergoing cardiac surgery were used in the calibration of our in silico population of models. The calibrated models in the population were divided into two groups (Normal and Alternans) depending on alternans occurrence. Our results showed that there were significant differences in the following 5 ionic currents between the two groups: fast sodium current, sodium calcium exchanger current, sodium potassium pump current, sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) calcium release flux and SR calcium reuptake flux. Further analysis indicated that fast sodium current and SR calcium uptake were the two most significant currents that contributed to voltage and calcium alternans generation, respectively

The de Sitter Relativistic Top Theory

We discuss the relativistic top theory from the point of view of the de Sitter (or anti de Sitter) group. Our treatment rests on Hanson-Regge's spherical relativistic top lagrangian formulation. We propose an alternative method for studying spinning objects via Kaluza-Klein theory. In particular, we derive the relativistic top equations of motion starting with the geodesic equation for a point particle in 4+N dimensions. We compare our approach with the Fukuyama's formulation of spinning objects, which is also based on Kaluza-Klein theory. We also report a generalization of our approach to a 4+N+D dimensional theory.Comment: 25 pages, Latex,commnets and references adde

The Eastwood-Singer gauge in Einstein spaces

Electrodynamics in curved spacetime can be studied in the Eastwood--Singer gauge, which has the advantage of respecting the invariance under conformal rescalings of the Maxwell equations. Such a construction is here studied in Einstein spaces, for which the Ricci tensor is proportional to the metric. The classical field equations for the potential are then equivalent to first solving a scalar wave equation with cosmological constant, and then solving a vector wave equation where the inhomogeneous term is obtained from the gradient of the solution of the scalar wave equation. The Eastwood--Singer condition leads to a field equation on the potential which is preserved under gauge transformations provided that the scalar function therein obeys a fourth-order equation where the highest-order term is the wave operator composed with itself. The second-order scalar equation is here solved in de Sitter spacetime, and also the fourth-order equation in a particular case, and these solutions are found to admit an exponential decay at large time provided that square-integrability for positive time is required. Last, the vector wave equation in the Eastwood-Singer gauge is solved explicitly when the potential is taken to depend only on the time variable.Comment: 13 pages. Section 6, with new original calculations, has been added, and the presentation has been improve

Bootstrap tomography of high-precision pulses for quantum control

Long-time dynamical decoupling and quantum control of qubits require high-precision control pulses. Full characterization (quantum tomography) of imperfect pulses presents a bootstrap problem: tomography requires initial states of a qubit which can not be prepared without imperfect pulses. We present a protocol for pulse error analysis, specifically tailored for a wide range of the single solid-state electron spins. Using a single electron spin of a nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond, we experimentally verify the correctness of the protocol, and demonstrate its usefulness for quantum control tasks