Does diet mediate associations of volume and bouts of sedentary time with cardiometabolic health indicators in adolescents?

Objective: Examine the mediating role of diet in the relationship between volume and duration of sedentary time with cardiometabolic health in adolescents. Methods: Adolescents (12-19 years) participating in the 2003/04 and 2005/06 U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) were examined. Cardiometabolic health indicators were body mass index z-scores (zBMI) (n 5 1,797) and metabolic syndrome (MetS) (n 5 812). An ActiGraph hip-worn accelerometer was used to derive total sedentary time and usual sedentary bout duration. Dietary intake was assessed using two 24-hour dietary recalls. Mediation analyses were conducted to examine five dietary mediators [total energy intake, discretionary foods, sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB), fruits and vegetables, and dietary quality] of the relationship between total sedentary time and usual sedentary bout duration with zBMI and MetS. Results: Total sedentary time was inversely associated with zBMI (b 5 21.33; 95% CI 22.53 to 20.13) but attenuated after adjusting for moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. No significant associations were observed between usual sedentary bout duration with zBMI or either sedentary measure with MetS. None of the five dietary variables mediated any of the relationships examined. Conclusions: Further studies are needed to explore associations of specific time periods (e.g., after school) and bout durations with both cardiometabolic health indicators and dietary behaviors

What about lay counselors' experiences of task-shifting mental health interventions? Example from a family-based intervention in Kenya.

Background:A key focus of health systems strengthening in low- and middle-income countries is increasing reach and access through task-shifting. As such models become more common, it is critical to understand the experiences of lay providers because they are on the forefront for delivering care services. A greater understanding would improve lay provider support and help them provide high-quality care. This is especially the case for those providing mental health services, as providing psychological care may pose unique stressors. We sought to understand experiences of lay counselors, focusing on identity, motivation, self-efficacy, stress, and burnout. The goal was to understand how taking on a new provider role influences their lives beyond simply assuming a new task, which would in turn help identify actionable steps to improve interventions with task-shifting components. Methods:Semi-structured interviews (n = 20) and focus group discussions (n = 3) were conducted with three lay counselor groups with varying levels of experience delivering a community-based family therapy intervention in Eldoret, Kenya. Thematic analysis was conducted, including intercoder reliability checks. A Stress Map was created to visualize stress profiles using free-listing and pile-sorting data collected during interviews and focus group discussions. Results:Counselors described high intrinsic motivation to become counselors and high self-efficacy after training. They reported positive experiences in the counselor role, with new skills improving their counseling and personal lives. As challenges arose, including client engagement difficulties and balancing many responsibilities, stress and burnout increased, dampening motivation and self-efficacy. In response, counselors described coping strategies, including seeking peer and supervisor support, that restored their motivation to persevere. At case completion, they again experienced high self-efficacy and a desire to continue. Conclusions:Findings informed suggestions for ways to incorporate support for lay providers into task-shifting interventions at initiation, during training, and throughout implementation. These include acknowledging and preparing counselors for challenges during training, increasing explicit attention to counselor stress in supervision, fostering peer support among lay providers, and ensuring a fair balance between workload and compensation. Improving and building an evidence base around practices for supporting lay providers will improve the effectiveness and sustainability of lay provider-delivered interventions

Tunable coaxial resonators based on silicon optical fibers

Thermal tuning of a coaxial fiber resonator with a silica cladding surrounding an inner silicon core is investigated. By pumping the silicon with below bandgap light, it is possible to redshift the WGM resonances

Pseudorandomness for Regular Branching Programs via Fourier Analysis

We present an explicit pseudorandom generator for oblivious, read-once, permutation branching programs of constant width that can read their input bits in any order. The seed length is $O(\log^2 n)$, where $n$ is the length of the branching program. The previous best seed length known for this model was $n^{1/2+o(1)}$, which follows as a special case of a generator due to Impagliazzo, Meka, and Zuckerman (FOCS 2012) (which gives a seed length of $s^{1/2+o(1)}$ for arbitrary branching programs of size $s$). Our techniques also give seed length $n^{1/2+o(1)}$ for general oblivious, read-once branching programs of width $2^{n^{o(1)}}$, which is incomparable to the results of Impagliazzo et al.Our pseudorandom generator is similar to the one used by Gopalan et al. (FOCS 2012) for read-once CNFs, but the analysis is quite different; ours is based on Fourier analysis of branching programs. In particular, we show that an oblivious, read-once, regular branching program of width $w$ has Fourier mass at most $(2w^2)^k$ at level $k$, independent of the length of the program.Comment: RANDOM 201

ANALYSIS OF THE JOINT KINEMATICS OF THE 5 IRON GOLF SWING

The purpose of this study was to identify the performance determining factors of the 5-iron golf swing. Joint kinematics were obtained from thirty male golfers using a twelve camera motion analysis system. Participants were divided into two groups, based on their ball launch speed (high vs. low). Those in the high ball speed group were deemed to be the more skillful group. Statistical analysis was used to identify the variables which differed significantly between the two groups, and could therefore be classified as the performance determining factors. The following factors were important to performance success: (i) the ability of the golfer to maintain a large X Factor angle and generate large X Factor angular velocity throughout the downswing, (ii) maintain the left arm as straight as possible throughout the swing, (iii) utilise greater movement of the hips in the direction of the target and a greater extension of the right hip during the downswing and (iv) greater flexion of both shoulders and less left shoulder internal rotation during the backswing

Evidence for variable selective pressures at MC1R

It is widely assumed that genes that influence variation in skin and hair pigmentation are under selection. To date,the melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R) is the only gene identified that explains substantial phenotypic variance inhuman pigmentation. Here we investigate MC1R polymorphism in several populations, for evidence of selection.We conclude that MC1R is under strong functional constraint in Africa, where any diversion from eumelanin production (black pigmentation) appears to be evolutionarily deleterious. Although many of the MC1R amino acid variants observed in non-African populations do affect MC1R function and contribute to high levels of MC1R diversity in Europeans, we found no evidence, in either the magnitude or the patterns of diversity, for its enhancement by selection; rather, our analyses show that levels of MC1R polymorphism simply reflect neutral expectations underrelaxation of strong functional constraint outside Africa

Associations of sitting accumulation patterns with cardio-metabolic risk biomarkers in Australian adults

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