Psychometric Properties of the Driving Behaviour Scale (DBS) among Polish Drivers

© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This manuscript is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).Anxiety can negatively affect an individual’s psychological wellbeing and lead to mild-to-moderate functional impairment in various areas of their lives. Despite this, the relationship between anxiety and driving performance has received very little empirical attention. The Driving Behaviour Scale (Clapp, Olsen, Beck, et al., 2011, Clapp, Olsen, Danoff-Burg, et al., 2011) was developed as a measure of anxious driving behaviours to support research in this area. The current study details adaptation and validation of the Driving Behaviour Scale (DBS; Clapp, Olsen, Beck, et al., 2011, Clapp, Olsen, Danoff-Burg, et al., 2011) in 310 university students in Poland. The overall internal consistency for the DBS was 0.76, while the two subscales demonstrated acceptable internal consistency (safety/cautious = 0.75 and hostile/aggressive behaviours = 0.85). The reliability estimates for performance deficit returned a lower coefficient of 0.65. Factor analysis produced a three-factor solution that supported the original structure of the DBS. The DBS may be utilised as a measure of driving anxiety in samples drawn from the general population.Peer reviewe

Systematic Modification of Zingerone Reveals Structural Requirements for Attraction of Jarvis’s Fruit Fly

Tephritid fruit flies are amongst the most significant horticultural pests globally and male chemical lures are important for monitoring and control. Zingerone has emerged as a unique male fruit fly lure that can attract dacine fruit flies that are weakly or non-responsive to methyl eugenol and cuelure. However, the key features of zingerone that mediate this attraction are unknown. As Jarvis’s fruit fly, Bactrocera jarvisi (Tryon), is strongly attracted to zingerone, we evaluated the response of B. jarvisi to 37 zingerone analogues in a series of field trials to elucidate the functional groups involved in attraction. The most attractive analogues were alkoxy derivatives, with isopropoxy being the most attractive, followed by ethoxy and trifluoromethoxy analogues. All of the phenolic esters tested were also attractive with the response typically decreasing with increasing size of the ester. Results indicate that the carbonyl group, methoxy group, and phenol of zingerone are key sites for the attraction of B. jarvisi and identify some constraints on the range of structural modifications that can be made to zingerone without compromising attraction. These findings are important for future work in developing and optimising novel male chemical lures for fruit flies

EXOGEN ultrasound bone healing system for long bone fractures with non-union or delayed healing: a NICE medical technology guidance

Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the source are credited.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.A routine part of the process for developing National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) medical technologies guidance is a submission of clinical and economic evidence by the technology manufacturer. The Birmingham and Brunel Consortium External Assessment Centre (EAC; a consortium of the University of Birmingham and Brunel University) independently appraised the submission on the EXOGEN bone healing system for long bone fractures with non-union or delayed healing. This article is an overview of the original evidence submitted, the EAC’s findings, and the final NICE guidance issued.The Birmingham and Brunel Consortium is funded by NICE to act as an External Assessment Centre for the Medical Technologies Evaluation Programme

Healthy weight regulation and eating disorder prevention in high school students: a universal and targeted web-based intervention

Background: Given the rising rates of obesity in children and adolescents, developing evidence-based weight loss or weight maintenance interventions that can be widely disseminated, well implemented, and are highly scalable is a public health necessity. Such interventions should ensure that adolescents establish healthy weight regulation practices while also reducing eating disorder risk.Objective: This study describes an online program, StayingFit, which has two tracks for universal and targeted delivery and was designed to enhance healthy living skills, encourage healthy weight regulation, and improve weight/shape concerns among high school adolescents.Methods: Ninth grade students in two high schools in the San Francisco Bay area and in St Louis were invited to participate. Students who were overweight (body mass index [BMI] >85th percentile) were offered the weight management track of StayingFit; students who were normal weight were offered the healthy habits track. The 12-session program included a monitored discussion group and interactive self-monitoring logs. Measures completed pre- and post-intervention included self-report height and weight, used to calculate BMI percentile for age and sex and standardized BMI (zBMI), Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) nutrition data, the Weight Concerns Scale, and the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale.Results: A total of 336 students provided informed consent and were included in the analyses. The racial breakdown of the sample was as follows: 46.7% (157/336) multiracial/other, 31.0% (104/336) Caucasian, 16.7% (56/336) African American, and 5.7% (19/336) did not specify; 43.5% (146/336) of students identified as Hispanic/Latino. BMI percentile and zBMI significantly decreased among students in the weight management track. BMI percentile and zBMI did not significantly change among students in the healthy habits track, demonstrating that these students maintained their weight. Weight/shape concerns significantly decreased among participants in both tracks who had elevated weight/shape concerns at baseline. Fruit and vegetable consumption increased for both tracks. Physical activity increased among participants in the weight management track, while soda consumption and television time decreased.Conclusions: Results suggest that an Internet-based, universally delivered, targeted intervention may support healthy weight regulation, improve weight/shape concerns among participants with eating disorders risk, and increase physical activity in high school students. Tailored content and interactive features to encourage behavior change may lead to sustainable improvements in adolescent health

Statistical Properties of Gamma-Ray Burst Polarization

The emission mechanism and the origin and structure of magnetic fields in gamma-ray burst (GRB) jets are among the most important open questions concerning the nature of the central engine of GRBs. In spite of extensive observational efforts, these questions remain to be answered and are difficult or even impossible to infer with the spectral and lightcurve information currently collected. Polarization measurements will lead to unambiguous answers to several of these questions. Recent developments in X-ray and gamma-ray polarimetry techniques have demonstrated a significant increase in sensitivity enabling several new mission concepts, e.g. POET (Polarimeters for Energetic Transients), providing wide field of view and broadband polarimetry measurements. If launched, missions of this kind would finally provide definitive measurements of GRB polarizations. We perform Monte Carlo simulations to derive the distribution of GRB polarizations in three emission models; the synchrotron model with a globally ordered magnetic field (SO model), the synchrotron model with a locally random magnetic field (SR model), and the Compton drag model (CD model). The results show that POET, or other polarimeters with similar capabilities, can constrain the GRB emission models by using the statistical properties of GRB polarizations. In particular, the ratio of the number of GRBs for which the polarization degrees can be measured to the number of GRBs that are detected (N_m/N_d) and the distributions of the polarization degrees (Pi) can be used as the criteria. If N_m/N_d > 30% and Pi is clustered between 0.2 and 0.7, the SO model will be favored. If instead N_m/N_d < 15%, then the SR or CD model will be favored. If several events with Pi > 0.8 are observed, then the CD model will be favored.Comment: Replaced with accepted version in ApJ. A few minor changes done. References adde

Exome Sequencing Identifies Genetic Variants Associated with Circulating Lipid Levels in Mexican Americans: The Insulin Resistance Atherosclerosis Family Study (IRASFS)

Genome-wide association studies have identified numerous variants associated with lipid levels; yet, the majority are located in non-coding regions with unclear mechanisms. In the Insulin Resistance Atherosclerosis Family Study (IRASFS), heritability estimates suggest a strong genetic basis: low-density lipoprotein (LDL, h2 = 0.50), high-density lipoprotein (HDL, h2 = 0.57), total cholesterol (TC, h2 = 0.53), and triglyceride (TG, h2 = 0.42) levels. Exome sequencing of 1,205 Mexican Americans (90 pedigrees) from the IRASFS identified 548,889 variants and association and linkage analyses with lipid levels were performed. One genome-wide significant signal was detected in APOA5 with TG (rs651821, PTG = 3.67 × 10−10, LODTG = 2.36, MAF = 14.2%). In addition, two correlated SNPs (r2 = 1.0) rs189547099 (PTG = 6.31 × 10−08, LODTG = 3.13, MAF = 0.50%) and chr4:157997598 (PTG = 6.31 × 10−08, LODTG = 3.13, MAF = 0.50%) reached exome-wide significance (P \u3c 9.11 × 10−08). rs189547099 is an intronic SNP in FNIP2 and SNP chr4:157997598 is intronic in GLRB. Linkage analysis revealed 46 SNPs with a LOD \u3e 3 with the strongest signal at rs1141070 (LODLDL = 4.30, PLDL = 0.33, MAF = 21.6%) in DFFB. A total of 53 nominally associated variants (P \u3c 5.00 × 10−05, MAF ≥ 1.0%) were selected for replication in six Mexican-American cohorts (N = 3,280). The strongest signal observed was a synonymous variant (rs1160983, PLDL = 4.44 × 10−17, MAF = 2.7%) in TOMM40. Beyond primary findings, previously reported lipid loci were fine-mapped using exome sequencing in IRASFS. These results support that exome sequencing complements and extends insights into the genetics of lipid levels

Estimating Water Supply Arsenic Levels in the New England Bladder Cancer Study

Background: Ingestion of inorganic arsenic in drinking water is recognized as a cause of bladder cancer when levels are relatively high (≥ 150 µg/L). The epidemiologic evidence is less clear at the low-to-moderate concentrations typically observed in the United States. Accurate retrospective exposure assessment over a long time period is a major challenge in conducting epidemiologic studies of environmental factors and diseases with long latency, such as cancer. Objective: We estimated arsenic concentrations in the water supplies of 2,611 participants in a population-based case–control study in northern New England. Methods: Estimates covered the lifetimes of most study participants and were based on a combination of arsenic measurements at the homes of the participants and statistical modeling of arsenic concentrations in the water supply of both past and current homes. We assigned a residential water supply arsenic concentration for 165,138 (95%) of the total 173,361 lifetime exposure years (EYs) and a workplace water supply arsenic level for 85,195 EYs (86% of reported occupational years). Results: Three methods accounted for 93% of the residential estimates of arsenic concentration: direct measurement of water samples (27%; median, 0.3 µg/L; range, 0.1–11.5), statistical models of water utility measurement data (49%; median, 0.4 µg/L; range, 0.3–3.3), and statistical models of arsenic concentrations in wells using aquifers in New England (17%; median, 1.6 µg/L; range, 0.6–22.4). Conclusions: We used a different validation procedure for each of the three methods, and found our estimated levels to be comparable with available measured concentrations. This methodology allowed us to calculate potential drinking water exposure over long periods