A microangiographic study of the effect of hyperthermia on the rabbit bladder

A model was used to study the effect of hyperthermia on a normal tissue. The model selected was the rabbit bladder and the end point measured was the changes in the micro-vasculature of the bladder wall. It was already demonstrated clinically that hot water bladder infusions produce regression in bladder tumors

Physical activity and mental health of school-aged children andadolescents: A rapid review

Mental health problems among children and young people are recognised as major threats to their well-being, and are associated with significant costs to them and to wider society. This study examined the evidence regarding the effectiveness of physical activity as a nonmedicinal treatment for mental health concerns among school-aged children and young people. Using a rapid reviewing methodology, which is a shortened form of systematic reviewing, it identified 16 suitable papers. The evidence gathered suggests that school-based physical activity has an important role to play in protecting young people from mental illness, and has the potential to save lives through helping to reduce feelings of hopelessness, suicide and self-harm. Social interactions and resilience are particularly important, and could be supported through a provision of appropriately devised physical activities, and especially team sports. Physical activity is especially valuable for girls in combatting mild to moderate depressive symptoms. Activity selection deserves serious consideration, as inappropriate provision can worsen, rather than help, psychological problems

Young children’s physical activity levels in primary (elementary) schools: what impact does physical education lessons have for young children?

Objectives: This paper explores the impact of physical education (PE) lessons, focusing on children aged 6–7 years, an underrepresented age in physical activity research. Methods: 10 children wore Actigraph accelerometers recording physical activity throughout the school day (9 am until 3.10 pm), for a year. Repeated measures ANOVA analysed: type of day (days including PE and days that did not) and gender (p <.05). Results: Boys achieved 88% (girls 70%) of the recommended daily physical activity levels on PE days compared to 77% (girls 63%) on non PE days. Significant differences occurred, boys more active than girls also PE days being more active than non-PE days. Conclusion: The novel findings indicate PE lessons significantly contributes to children’s physical activity levels

The A, B, Cs of physical activity, play and motor learning

A substantial amount of international research has documented children’s need for explorative, experiential and challenging physical play. Through versatile and all-round varieties of play forms and play environments children will develop basic movement skills and learn how to master their body in different and challenging situations. Children’s play is motivated through curiosity and fantasy of exploring the environment and this allows them to master their own bodies and learn to move in a variety of different ways. This symposium will consider how the abilities of: agility, balance and coordination (‘the A,B,Cs’) are stimulated and developed through different and open-ended affordances of play within four different European countries. The purpose of this is to share how the same early movement abilities (A,B,Cs), are developed according to context, culture and environment. The four countries have been chosen as their natural or adapted environments are varied, but they are all used to enhance and help the children to explore, engage in movement that develop their A,B,Cs. Different kind of A,B,C’s will be demonstrated: Finland through focusing on the use of snow and ice. Belgium through focusing on the use of water and aquatic activities, using the specific CEReKi approach. Norway through focusing on the use of the woods and forest environments and England through the use of beach, sand and indoor environments. The use of tools and equipment to help support the children’s development will be examined as well as the role of the teacher to help aid the early movement skills within each different natural or adapted environment. Photography and illustrations will demonstrate how the A,B,C’s are developed differently within each country. Paper one - Finnish perspective The purpose of this presentation is to concretize affordances of Finnish nature during winter – ice and snow. Ice is fascinating slippery surface. It challenge children’s balance and agility constantly, when they are moving or playing on the ice. Children need to activate all their neuro-muscular systems to coordinate their body limbs to keep their balance. Controlling their bodies in different postures while standing or moving helps motivate their play. Therefore, moving on the ice can be seen as playing with own body and trying to keep the balance. Beautiful white snow is free mattress for children: children are attracted to jump, run, throw, dive, cave, lay, roll, spin and use their creativity and desire to make whatever they imagine to try. These physical activities are excellent stimulation for the movement. Moving in the snow slows down children’s movements and they need to use more strength than without snow. Nordic children are lucky to have attractive winter affordances, ice and snow to tempt them physically active play. Challenging surfaces and materials demand concentration, which is prerequisite for development of physical abilities and motor coordination. The seasonal variation with changing affordances may be one reason causing good motor competence of Nordic children. Paper two - Belgium's perspective The aquatic environment is generally for children a source of pleasure and fulfilment. However, water presents physical characteristics for which the humans are not fundamentally constituted. The ability to move in the water is governed by different rules that the child must appropriates in a progressive way. For example the child has to move from the vertical position to the horizontal position in water. Propulsion uses more the upper limbs than the lower limbs. Water resistance changes the speed of segmental movements and breath must be controlled. The aquatic environment should be discovered in a suitable, progressive and fun way. This is what is proposed with the CEReKi original water familiarization method developed in Belgium. The purpose of this presentation is to illustrate how an original arrangement can stimulate the agility, balance and coordination (ABC’s) of the child in the water through active play. Specially adapted equipment is introduced into the pool to provide a stimulating environment, allowing children to evolve according to their desire and level. This presentation will show how a synthetic fibre net, bars, floats, a metal cage or slides can be used to develop children's aquatic ABC’s in an adapted and affording environment. Paper three - Norwegian perspective Children learn movements and gain bodily experiences by exploring different environments. Through bodily experiences, children explore details and quality of movements such as balance, coordination, speed, agility, force and endurance Children develop perceptual-motor skills through natural spontaneous interaction with the environment. The materiality of the environment affords challenges and experiences that promote motor learning and the children respond by exploring, discovering and face the challenges by mastering perceptual motor skills in context with the environment. This presentation will demonstrate how children’s physical play is stimulated and developed through different and open-ended affordances of play “How to encourage explorative and problem-solving play” “How do landscapes promote motor learning and mastering of bodily competence?” Approaches: * Children’s play and learning through experience will be demonstrated through a video of a natural play space * Open-ended affordances of landscapes will be presented Literature and case studies showing the contextual environment- child relationship in learning fundamental motor skills will be discussed. Multifunctional and challenging environments seem to have promotive effect on children’s physical and explorative play and should therefore be encouraged as a pedagogical approach in motor learning. Paper four - English perspective. Nowhere within the UK is further than 70 miles (113 kilometres) from the coast, and England is made up of 2728 miles (4,422 km) of coastline. The coastline has a variety of natural textures from flat sandy dunes to steep white cliffs such as those found at Dover. The beach and coastline offers English children an almost Jurassic exploration, as it is the place that is full of beauty, history and fossils, with many schools having weekly or daily ‘beach school’ in which the children, learn, explore and play on the beach environment. The photographs and illustrations provided in the paper will show how the abilities of agility, balance and coordination are developed through a variety of ways using the sand and beach environments. For example the fine and coarse sand are ideal for sensory touch development with children from very young age. Both the actual outdoor environments of the beach and rock pools as well as sand pits, sand boxes and water boxes within indoor settings are used to develop physical curiosity, through hiding objects that the children have to use fine motor skills to dig out, to use pincers to help develop their grasping, reaching and coordination skills

The Incentive Effects of Tournaments: The PGA Australasian Tour 1991

This paper examines the relationship betlveen the structure of tournament incentives and individual performance. Although it follows recent research on Professional Golf Association tournaments in the United States and Europe, it concentrates on the PGA Australasian Tour in 1991 for which financial incentives on average are much less attractive than for tourna1nents in the northern hemisphere. The results strongly confirm that tournan1ents do have an incentive effect. The incentive effects that such tournament-type reward structures are clearly shown to have may be applicable not only to professional sport hut also to industrial wage structures. Tournament models can offer a different perspective on the extent to which pay influences performance at the firm level

The targeting of industrial energy audits for DSM planning

The scope of this section of the study is to establish which industries to target for energy audits and demand side management (DSM) projects. As only a limited number of audits will be conducted, it is important to establish how to maximise the return on the invested efforts and resources. The aim is thus, to develop a ranking of industries based on their potential for savings from DSM interventions. It considers the following criteria: 1. Electricity consumption and potential DSM savings from retrofits at existing plants; 2. Electricity consumption and potential DSM savings for new plants; 3. Potential DSM interventions by industry; 4. The costs of a suite of DSM interventions by industry; and 5. The technical ease with which DSM may be implemented by industry. The potential for DSM savings for different industrial sectors is evaluated based on these criteria, using aggregated values sourced from local and international studies. DSM measures are applied to the various ‘end uses’ of electricity within each industry. From these we suggest a shortlist of 10 industries to target for energy audits and data gathering. We consider both industry and mining, and refer to the group collectively as industry. The data gathered in the energy audits will be used to refine estimates of the potential for DSM savings in each sector. Data loggers will be installed to measure electricity consumption and demand profiles (kW load as a function of time), which will be used to estimate the impact of DSM interventions on national demand for energy and power. This can provide valuable input to power system planning and analysis in the future

Mesoscale observations of Joule heating near an auroral arc and ion-neutral collision frequency in the polar cap E region

We report on the first mesoscale combined ionospheric and thermospheric observations, partly in the vicinity of an auroral arc, from Svalbard in the polar cap on 2 February 2010. The EISCAT Svalbard radar employed a novel scanning mode in order to obtain F and E region ion flows over an annular region centered on the radar. Simultaneously, a colocated Scanning Doppler Imager observed the E region neutral winds and temperatures around 110 km altitude using the 557.7 nm auroral optical emission. Combining the ion and neutral data permits the E region Joule heating to be estimated with an azimuthal spatial resolution of ∼64 km at a radius of ∼163 km from the radar. The spatial distribution of Joule heating shows significant mesoscale variation. The ion-neutral collision frequency is measured in the E region by combining all the data over the entire field of view with only weak aurora present. The estimated ion-neutral collision frequency at ∼113 km altitude is in good agreement with the MSIS atmospheric model

Federating distributed clinical data for the prediction of adverse hypotensive events

The ability to predict adverse hypotensive events, where a patient's arterial blood pressure drops to abnormally low (and dangerous) levels, would be of major benefit to the fields of primary and secondary health care, and especially to the traumatic brain injury domain. A wealth of data exist in health care systems providing information on the major health indicators of patients in hospitals (blood pressure, temperature, heart rate, etc.). It is believed that if enough of these data could be drawn together and analysed in a systematic way, then a system could be built that will trigger an alarm predicting the onset of a hypotensive event over a useful time scale, e.g. half an hour in advance. In such circumstances, avoidance measures can be taken to prevent such events arising. This is the basis for the Avert-IT project (http://www.avert-it.org), a collaborative EU-funded project involving the construction of a hypotension alarm system exploiting Bayesian neural networks using techniques of data federation to bring together the relevant information for study and system development