Even low level of physical activity is associated with reduced mortality among people with metabolic syndrome, a population based study (the HUNT 2 study, Norway)

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Low levels of physical activity may increase the risk of developing metabolic syndrome, a cluster of metabolic factors that are associated with the risk of premature death. It has been suggested that physical activity may reduce the impact of factors associated with metabolic syndrome, but it is not known whether physical activity may reduce mortality in people with metabolic syndrome.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In a prospective study of 50,339 people, 13,449 had metabolic syndrome at baseline and were followed up for ten years to assess cause-specific mortality. The population was divided into two age groups: those younger than 65 years of age and those older than age 65. Information on their physical activity levels was collected at baseline.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Metabolic syndrome was associated with higher mortality from all causes (hazard ratio (HR) 1.35, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) 1.20 to 1.52) and from cardiovascular causes (HR 1.78, 95% CI 1.39 to 2.29) in people younger than 65 years old than among other populations. In older people, there was no overall association of metabolic syndrome with mortality. People with metabolic syndrome who reported high levels of physical activity at baseline were at a reduced risk of death from all causes compared to those who reported no physical activity, both in the younger age group (HR 0.52, 95% CI 0.37 to 0.73) and in the older age group (HR 0.59, 95% CI 0.47 to 0.74).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Among people with metabolic syndrome, physical activity was associated with reduced mortality from all causes and from cardiovascular causes. Compared to inactivity, even low levels of physical activity were associated with reduced mortality.</p

Work ethics and general work attitudes in adolescents are related to quality of life, sense of coherence and subjective health – a Swedish questionnaire study

BACKGROUND: Working life is an important arena in most people's lives, and the working line concept is important for the development of welfare in a society. For young people, the period before permanent establishment in working life has become longer during the last two decades. Knowledge about attitudes towards work can help us to understand young people's transition to the labour market. Adolescents are the future workforce, so it seems especially important to notice their attitudes towards work, including attitudes towards the welfare system. The aim of this study was to describe and analyse upper secondary school students' work attitudes, and to explore factors related to these attitudes. METHODS: The sample consisted of 606 upper secondary school students. They all received a questionnaire including questions about quality of life (QOL), sense of coherence (SOC), subjective health and attitudes towards work. The response rate was 91%. A factor analysis established two dimensions of work attitudes. Multivariate analyses were carried out by means of logistic regression models. RESULTS: Work ethics (WE) and general work attitudes (GWA) were found to be two separate dimensions of attitudes towards work. Concerning WE the picture was similar regardless of gender or study programme. Males in theoretical programmes appeared to have more unfavourable GWA than others. Multivariate analyses revealed that good QOL, high SOC and good health were significantly related to positive WE, and high SOC was positively related to GWA. Being female was positively connected to WE and GWA, while studying on a practical programme was positively related to GWA only. Among those who received good parental support, GWA seemed more favourable. CONCLUSION: Assuming that attitudes towards work are important to the working line concept, this study points out positive factors of importance for the future welfare of the society. Individual factors such as female gender, good QOL, high SOC and good health as well as support from both parents, positive experience of school and work contacts related positively to attitudes towards work. Further planning and supportive work have to take these factors into account

Fortune Favours the Bold: An Agent-Based Model Reveals Adaptive Advantages of Overconfidence in War

Overconfidence has long been considered a cause of war. Like other decision-making biases, overconfidence seems detrimental because it increases the frequency and costs of fighting. However, evolutionary biologists have proposed that overconfidence may also confer adaptive advantages: increasing ambition, resolve, persistence, bluffing opponents, and winning net payoffs from risky opportunities despite occasional failures. We report the results of an agent-based model of inter-state conflict, which allows us to evaluate the performance of different strategies in competition with each other. Counter-intuitively, we find that overconfident states predominate in the population at the expense of unbiased or underconfident states. Overconfident states win because: (1) they are more likely to accumulate resources from frequent attempts at conquest; (2) they are more likely to gang up on weak states, forcing victims to split their defences; and (3) when the decision threshold for attacking requires an overwhelming asymmetry of power, unbiased and underconfident states shirk many conflicts they are actually likely to win. These “adaptive advantages” of overconfidence may, via selection effects, learning, or evolved psychology, have spread and become entrenched among modern states, organizations and decision-makers. This would help to explain the frequent association of overconfidence and war, even if it no longer brings benefits today

New genetic loci implicated in fasting glucose homeostasis and their impact on type 2 diabetes risk.

Levels of circulating glucose are tightly regulated. To identify new loci influencing glycemic traits, we performed meta-analyses of 21 genome-wide association studies informative for fasting glucose, fasting insulin and indices of beta-cell function (HOMA-B) and insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) in up to 46,186 nondiabetic participants. Follow-up of 25 loci in up to 76,558 additional subjects identified 16 loci associated with fasting glucose and HOMA-B and two loci associated with fasting insulin and HOMA-IR. These include nine loci newly associated with fasting glucose (in or near ADCY5, MADD, ADRA2A, CRY2, FADS1, GLIS3, SLC2A2, PROX1 and C2CD4B) and one influencing fasting insulin and HOMA-IR (near IGF1). We also demonstrated association of ADCY5, PROX1, GCK, GCKR and DGKB-TMEM195 with type 2 diabetes. Within these loci, likely biological candidate genes influence signal transduction, cell proliferation, development, glucose-sensing and circadian regulation. Our results demonstrate that genetic studies of glycemic traits can identify type 2 diabetes risk loci, as well as loci containing gene variants that are associated with a modest elevation in glucose levels but are not associated with overt diabetes

Search for R-parity violating supersymmetry via the LLE couplings lambda_{121}, lambda_{122} or lambda_{133} in ppbar collisions at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV

A search for gaugino pair production with a trilepton signature in the framework of R-parity violating supersymmetry via the couplings lambda_121, lambda_122, or lambda_133 is presented. The data, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of L~360/pb, were collected from April 2002 to August 2004 with the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider, at a center-of-mass energy of sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV. This analysis considers final states with three charged leptons with the flavor combinations eel, mumul, and eetau (l=e or mu). No evidence for supersymmetry is found and limits at the 95% confidence level are set on the gaugino pair production cross section and lower bounds on the masses of the lightest neutralino and chargino are derived in two supersymmetric models.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures (fig2 includes 3 subfigures

Search for W' boson production in the W'->tb decay channel

We present a search for the production of a new heavy gauge boson W' that decays to a top quark and a bottom quark. We have analyzed 230 pb^{-1} of data collected with the Dzero detector at the Fermilab Tevatron collider at a center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV. No significant excess of events above the standard model expectation is found in any region of the final state invariant mass distribution. We set upper limits on the production cross section of W' bosons times branching ratio to top quarks at the 95% confidence level for several different W' boson masses. We exclude masses between 200 GeV and 610 GeV for a W' boson with standard-model-like couplings, between 200 GeV and 630 GeV for a W' boson with right-handed couplings that is allowed to decay to both leptons and quarks, and between 200 GeV and 670 GeV for a W' boson with right-handed couplings that is only allowed to decay to quarks.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, accepted by Phys. Lett.

Double parton interactions in photon+3 jet events in ppbar collisions sqrt{s}=1.96 TeV

We have used a sample of photon+3 jets events collected by the D0 experiment with an integrated luminosity of about 1 fb^-1 to determine the fraction of events with double parton scattering (f_DP) in a single ppbar collision at sqrt{s}=1.96 TeV. The DP fraction and effective cross section (sigma_eff), a process-independent scale parameter related to the parton density inside the nucleon, are measured in three intervals of the second (ordered in pT) jet transverse momentum pT_jet2 within the range 15 < pT_jet2 < 30 GeV. In this range, f_DP varies between 0.23 < f_DP < 0.47, while sigma_eff has the average value sigma_eff_ave = 16.4 +- 0.3(stat) +- 2.3(syst) mb.Comment: 15 pages, 13 figure

Measurements of differential cross sections of Z/gamma*+jets+X events in proton anti-proton collisions at sqrt{s}=1.96 TeV

We present cross section measurements for Z/gamma*+jets+X production, differential in the transverse momenta of the three leading jets. The data sample was collected with the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron proton anti-proton collider at a center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 1 fb-1. Leading and next-to-leading order perturbative QCD predictions are compared with the measurements, and agreement is found within the theoretical and experimental uncertainties. We also make comparisons with the predictions of four event generators. Two parton-shower-based generators show significant shape and normalization differences with respect to the data. In contrast, two generators combining tree-level matrix elements with a parton shower give a reasonable description of the the shapes observed in data, but the predicted normalizations show significant differences with respect to the data, reflecting large scale uncertainties. For specific choices of scales, the normalizations for either generator can be made to agree with the measurements.Comment: Published in PLB. 11 pages, 3 figure

Dependence of the ttˉt\bar{t} production cross section on the transverse momentum of the top quark

We present a measurement of the differential cross section for $t\bar{t}$ events produced in $p\bar{p}$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}=1.96$ TeV as a function of the transverse momentum ($p_T$) of the top quark. The selected events contain a high-$p_T$ lepton ($\ell$), four or more jets, and a large imbalance in $p_T$, and correspond to 1 fb${}^{-1}$ of integrated luminosity recorded with the D0 detector. Each event must have at least one candidate for a $b$ jet. Objects in the event are associated through a constrained kinematic fit to the $t\bar{t}\to WbW\bar{b} \to \ell\nu b q\bar{q}'\bar{b}$ process. Results from next-to-leading-order perturbative QCD calculations agree with the measured differential cross section. Comparisons are also provided to predictions from Monte Carlo event generators using QCD calculations at different levels of precision.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, 4 tables, updated to reflect the published versio